Blogdom Child (the official Random Child Blog)

Year In Review: 2011

2011-12-28T10:53:00.000-08:00

Another year has passed us by. And what a year it was. Within a month we had finished and released our sophomore album, Isolation. At the time Jack and I were in Chicago, which was currently experiencing a monstrous blizzard, canceling our classes and keeping us locked in our homes. I couldn't have asked for a better release party. While all of us were proud of our work on this album, it certainly wasn't perfect, so we all quickly set out to top it with our next album. This summer we locked ourselves in Eli's basement and cranked out 13 loud, sweaty, gnarled, and vicious songs. We're currently about 70% done with tracking for "Trials", and we're already working on album art and lining up collaborators for the mixing process.

In typical Random Child fashion, we're also working on writing material for the next two (!) albums. Interesting things are on the way. The nice thing is that if you aren't digging the music on 'Trials', you still might enjoy the next album. We're doing our best to constantly move forward in directions that excite us, and hopefully entertain you as well.

2011 was also the first year that Random Child really entered a community of like minded musicians and artists known as The Epoch. Over the course of the year, The Epoch released a stunning array of albums that have forced us to take our songwriting and recording chops to the next level. We will also be collaborating with some of these artists on "Trials", so get to know them. Here are The Epoch's albums of 2011 in chronological order. THE EPOCH IS NOW

So, 2012. Here's our plan. We are going to finish recording Trials, and then we are going to mix and master it. Hopefully it will be out by late spring/early summer. We are going to keep writing new music for the next album. Two of us are going to graduate from college and have a quarter life crisis. And then the world ends. Yippee!

Crowd Participation

2011-11-19T11:43:00.000-08:00

Random Child wants YOUR help. As you may know, we’re in the tracking process for our upcoming third album. While working on the vocals for a particular song it struck me that it would be nice, and thematically appropriate, to open the material up to contributions from the public. The part is simple, and it doesn’t require any musical skills or knowledge. All we want is for you to record yourself saying “Congratulations” and then send us that recording. The recording doesn’t have to be high quality, and we’re flexible as to the format. More important is that you sound at least somewhat sincere and excited, although don’t go overboard. As long as it’s somewhere in between the extremes of Keanu Reeves and Brian Blessed it should be fine. After you’re done with the recording, email it to randomchildnyc@gmail.com

Thanks!

Reject Instrumentality

Voices

2011-10-04T21:31:00.000-07:00

I recently started recording vocals for "Trials". So far we've completed my parts for three songs (which I shall refer to with acronyms of their titles), FotFW, GSORH, and CiS. The first two are all clean vocals, albeit fairly intense clean vocals, but the third is entirely harsh vocals. While I have done some harsh vocals here and there for demos over the last year, this is the first time I've had to record them since we finished "Isolation" and I'd forgotten how much they can take out of your whole body. While screaming/shouting, I could feel vibrations in my diaphragm, going all the way down to my waist and all the way back up to my throat. After we finished record my whole body felt somewhat off and my energy level was drastically lower than it was before. It's a draining physical process, which in many ways mirrors the painful birth of many of the lyrics on this record. The majority of the vocals on this album are harsh, some more than others, so this will be an intense experience for sure. Thank god so many of these songs are so short.

Helping me with this process is my roommate and good friend Seth Engel. Seth is a multi-instrumentalist who records under the name Options. He describes his sound as "Math Pop" which is a fair label if I do say so myself. There are certainly a lot of influences from the world of math rock and 90's emo, but they're filtered through a fairly hooky and approachable sensibility. The guy is super nice, and his music is pretty accessibly while still retaining some nice progressive touches. Listen to Options here and check out his blog here.

In other news, school is taking up most of my time, and what little free time I have is usually sucked up by my other bands, Eternity Engine, Sharpless, and Idealist. I did have some to catch Dream Theater when they stopped in Chicago recently, which was incredible as always. Mike Mangini fits the band like a glove, and his solo was too good for words. Lots of music, lots of work.

More vocals will be recorded soon.

Reject Instrumentality

-Ian

The problem with openess

2011-08-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

I worry about things sometimes. Lately I've been worrying about exactly how much I should reveal about "Trials", both while working on it, and after the fact. I know I said that I'd go into this project with a policy of total honesty, but I wonder if that ruins the fun of figuring out the meaning of the material on your own, or whether too much information before the release of an album tires you out and wears down your excitement.

Here's what I am comfortable telling you about "Trials". The drums, bass, and Eli's guitar parts (which for the most part are the rhythm parts) are finished for all 13 songs. The same goes for the lyrical content of the album, although there is one line in the final song that I still think I could improve. I am also totally comfortable with saying that it's the best Random Child album by far, despite being only about half finished. What I am not comfortable with telling you are the particulars of WHY it's the best. Sure I can give you the usual "it's heavier, but more melodic too!" fanfare that every metal band on the face of the planet does while hyping up their new album, but that would be untrue (the album is actually way heavier across the board, even the melodic songs are beefier than before) and cheap. I would love to talk about specific moments on this album that really excite me, but it would be pointless for two reasons:

1.You haven't heard the moments in question so my descriptions and explanations of those parts will fall on mostly deaf ears.

2.It would color the experience of hearing those moments for the first time by yourself.

I've also been thinking over exactly how much information I should give out after the album is released. If I were going to be truly open and honest like I promised I would, the album would come with detailed descriptions of what each song is about, but would that really help? The project has grown and shifted so much in the process of its creation that I'm not even sure if the "honesty" policy even makes sense any more. The lyrics are still the most personal I've written to date, but in order to make them reach the quality that I was aiming for, a certain degree of weirdness introduced itself, and well... let's say that it really wrote itself at that point. Don't take that as a bad thing though, as I said before I'm quite happy with how this album is turning out, and I'm also pleased that the concepts I've been pinning to my feature albums are turning out to be more flexible than I anticipated.

So, how much do you want to know about this album? And how much do you think an artist should reveal to his or her audience about his or her art?

Reject Instrumentality

Maxo takes it to the next level

2011-08-06T08:40:00.000-07:00

Well this certainly has been a crazy week. While I was away in Mannheim, Germany it seems that the entire country has gone nuts over one thing or another. The debt ceiling was raised, comic book fans got up in arms about the new identity of Ultimate Spider Man, and Random Child bassist Max Coburn announced the full scope of his completely insane LEVEL MUSIC project.

Put simply, Max, under the guise of Maxo, is trying to build a video game backwards. He has been writing pieces of background music for levels of a video game that do not yet exist with the hopes of amassing a group of developers and designers to create the game based on the music. In age where video games are getting bogged down by bland repetition of known commercial successes or getting lost by chasing fleeting trends, this is an incredibly brave and innovate method of design.

I mentioned that the music written for the project was intended to be background music, but PLEASE do not think that this is some tasteless audio wallpaper. The 45 tracks that Max has written and released in the LEVEL MUSIC series are all compositional achievements, showcasing Max's incredibly sense of harmony, form, and textural awareness. Although he limits himself to classic 16 bit soundfonts, he takes many of the compositions in directions that very few game composers dared to tread in the past. Stylistically you can hear Max's jazz fusion influences, as well as his love for progressive rock bands like Gentle Giant or Yes. And in case you're wondering, there are some seriously heavy metal tracks every now and then. Although I don't play as many video games as I used to, I can safely say that they don't make VGM like this very often any more. Even if you're not into Video Game Music, I implore you to at least give this massive collection a chance.

You can find the home blog for the project here, along with downloads to the entire collection.

You can also find Max's youtube channel here, if you want to sample some tracks before you dive in.

Here is a personal favorite of mine from LEVEL MUSIC 6 called Black Stronghold. Something tells me that this level will be a royal pain in the ass to beat.

Enjoy, and spread the word!

Trials: Day #11

2011-07-21T14:47:00.000-07:00

Last night Jack and I went to a free acoustic show on a roof in Bed-Stuy featuring two of our friends bands, Bellows, and eskimeaux. The Bellows set was one led by lo-fi equipment being pushed to its limits, and sincere, if somewhat reserved songwriting. eskimeaux was far more delicate in sound, but ornamented their songs with tight and melodious vocal harmonies. Both played to the backdrop of a setting sun, and oncoming ominous clouds. The atmosphere was occasionally overwhelming, and was captured by the always talented Richard Gin.

I've always found my contemporaries and colleagues to be both my greatest source of encouragement and intimidation. Thankfully, the material Random Child is working on currently more than meets the my standards. Today we finally got Jack caught up on the material, while later Eli and I began work on one of the two songs we had yet to cover in our rehearsals. Things are sounding really good. Some songs are the simplest and most overtly punk we've ever done, while one song has a 7/4 against 4/4 against 5/8 polymeter.

We are having one final rehearsal this Saturday to wrap up the remaining songs, and then we take a short break before jumping into recording.

Reject Instrumentality

Trials Weekend!

2011-07-11T12:12:00.000-07:00

Has it really been nearly a month since our last update? My how time flies. The delay in our activity, and our updates about our activity can be attributed to a variety of factors. Family events, national holidays, work schedules, vacations, apartment searches, etc. It’s been a busy month in nearly every way except musically. This weekend however, Eli, Max, and I got together and made some serious inroads into the track list. Eli and I also wrote a new song each, and we worked on getting those up to speed with the rest of the material. We’re very close to finishing the rehearsals for this album, and we’re starting to figure out how/where we’re going to record the album. Like Isolation this will be a mostly DIY affair, but with some key differences from our sessions last year. As always, we endeavor to learn from our mistakes and top our previous works in every way imaginable. At this stage, I am confidant that Trials can and will be a better album than Isolation. Thank you for the continued interest and patience

Reject Instrumentality

Trials: Day #8

2011-06-16T15:32:00.000-07:00

After a month of rehearsing and practicing, we are now down to five songs left to learn. Each of the remaining songs present interesting and unique challenges to us. We have one longer song which will demand greater patience and memorization. Another song is slightly messy structurally, and will require reworking to fit the album. Yet another song is so different from the rest of the material that it will take some time just to approach it in the right mindset. The final two songs present the most daunting technical challenges of the rehearsal sessions so far. Today, Max, Eli, and I focused on these last two, one of which was written by Eli, the other of which is one of my compositions. In some ways it seems like Eli and I are in somewhat of an arms race as to who can write the trickier song. Eli's song is a maze of parts, jumping from section to section quickly, with little remorse. It also requires a lot of fast foot playing, something of a weak spot for me. My song, while much shorter, is something straight out of the Dillinger Escape Plan songbook. Time signatures change nearly ever measure, and there a multitude of fast runs that need to be synchronized at just the right time. Needless to say, some of the songs we learned now seem much easier by comparison.

Despite the taxing material, these writing/rehearsing sessions are going far smoother than the writing sessions for "Isolation" which often featured long bouts of shouting and debate. I think the comparative ease of these sessions can be attributed how focused we were about what we wanted this album to sound like before we began practicing. Hopefully this will continue into the next stage of writing and recording.

Reject Instrumentality.

Trials: Day #5 (Slayer Day!)

2011-06-06T16:13:00.000-07:00

Happy Slayer Day to all of our more dedicated metal fans out there. Today's practice was appropriately spent working on a blisteringly fast thrash number for the new album. In terms of raw bpm, we have one other song that's quicker than this one, but this piece is more relentless in its pace, and requires more technical precision. Jack was off doing secret things, so it was only Eli, Max, and I today. Sometimes its nice to work in smaller groups before tackling a song with the full band, so that the members more acquainted with the song can help those that are just learning the material for the first time. Other than our thrasher, we reviewed the previously rehearsed songs and started refreshing a longer, Tool inspired jam. This song's arrangement still needs substantial fleshing out, but the core presents some intriguing possibilities.

Until next time

Reject Instrumentality

P.S. Please check out this great write up about Sharpless, Jack's solo project for which I play drums, and Humbert Humbert, the punk band of our friends Henry and Felix.

Trials: Day #3

2011-05-28T14:54:00.000-07:00

The rehearsing and relearning phase of TRIALS continued today with the addition of two new songs. “New” isn’t exactly the right term, as one of these songs was the first tune written for the album over a year ago. The other song was one of Eli’s compositions from this winter; a slower and more controlled tune, which was a nice contrast to the frantic, and somewhat chaotic, nature of the first song. With each rehearsal, we are pushing ourselves harder to master these pieces. I am certain that this dedication and diligent practice will show on final album. Random Child, as a band, is becoming stronger.

Reject Instrumentality

Trials: Day #1

2011-05-23T18:05:00.000-07:00

Today was the first day of Random Child's full band writing process for TRIALS. We are rehearsing the songs we wrote last summer, as well as the songs we wrote over the school year in order to jog our memories and oil up the gears for writing brand new material. Just from today's rehearsal I can say that these songs are much more engaging and explosive in a live setting than our last two albums, but they still retain the compositional nuances that we developed on ISOLATION. There are many more days of hard work ahead of us, but I do not fear them, instead I crave them.

Reject Instrumentality

Announcing: The Third Album

2011-04-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone

We, the members of Random Child, have some interesting news for you. But first, we would like to remind you that our latest album “Isolation” is still out in the world. If you haven’t heard this album, shame on you. Please make your way over to our bandcamp and give it a listen.

Now, onto the matter at hand. We have been keeping secrets from you. As of a today, it has been a year since we started writing material for our third album. We deeply apologize for keeping this information from you, but we wanted to keep you excited for ‘Isolation’. Now that this album has made its way out into the world, we’re all eager to let you in on the things that have been keeping us occupied for the last year. To be perfectly honest, near the end of the mixing process for ‘Isolation’ some of us were far more interested in the material we were developing for the third album. Needless to say, we are all very happy to announce the name of this record to you today.

The third Random Child album will be called TRIALS. The theme of this record is HONESTY, both to others, and with your self. This honesty will extend to you, our audience. As we work on the album, please feel free to ask us about the album, and we will inform you to the best of our ability. The songs have some repeating interests and lyrical imagery, but this is not a “concept” album in the way that ‘Isolation’ was. This is, compared to the previous two records, our most direct and personal album, both musically and lyrically. The songs are short, aggressive, to the point, and unapologetic. They are vicious and ugly and will pull absolutely no punches. If ‘Isolation’ was our prog album, this is undoubtedly our hardcore album.

Starting in May, the TRIALS will begin. The Epoch is now.

Reject Instrumentality.

-Ian, Eli, Jack, and Max.

Let's Talk About Japan

2011-03-12T16:50:00.001-08:00

First things first, how is everyone doing? Enjoying Isolation? I'm still running into a few people who haven't heard the album yet, so be sure to send it to your friends/talk about the record if you're into it.

Now, in light of the insane natural disaster that struck Japan recently I thought I would take some time to ponder out loud about the relationship between Japan and the United States. As a side, but by no means inconsequential, note: if you have some extra cash/time you should probably contribute to the Red Cross or some other emergency aid system. Sure, Japan has one hell of an infrastructure for dealing with these kinds of problems, but it can't hurt right?

Continuing on this train of thought, my friend and fellow Random Child member, Jack Greenleaf always talks about how he finds it amazing how Japan is able to bounce back from just about every catastrophe that gets thrown at them, even if it means completely restructuring their society from the ground up. Given that two very large shifts in Japan have occurred as a result of Western Influence, namely the reintroduction of firearms in the 19th century, and their defeat at the end of WWII. The latter especially has always intrigued me. I remember being fascinated by the atomic bomb as a young child, not fully understanding the horror of the bombings but entranced by the image of the mushroom cloud. This interest has continued into my young adulthood. The advent of the atomic age is probably the most massively influential event on American culture and art until very recently (read: until 9/11 and the Internet really took off).

The same could be said for Japan. Its pretty easy for me as a guilt ridden American to look at every piece of art and music that makes its way out of Japan and read it to be about the Atomic Bomb. While this is certainly an easy conclusion to jump to, it isn't without merit. I mean, really think about Godzilla for a minute. Or how about Akira? Neon Genesis Evangelion? Even Pokemon has some subtle hints to there being some sort of large scale war in the recent past. Hell, the guitarist of Mono openly said that the thing that makes them different from other post rock bands is that they're from the only country to suffer from nuclear bombing as an act of war.

While this connection between the US and Japan is an interesting and strong one, it doesn't completely explain to me why so many Americans my age, younger, and some older, are so obsessed with Japanese culture. Perhaps its the fact that Japan is literally on the other side of the planet. The distance from Japan can make it look more like a parallel universe to our own rather than just a separate country like England, or the rest of Europe for that matter. Our fascination also reminds me of how many European rock bands viewed coming to the US as a sort of homecoming. For many of us, visiting Japan, the birthplace of all the anime/manga, video games, completely batshit experimental music, would be like traveling to a counter culture Mecca.

What I find really strange is that most of my favorite anime is either highly critical of a culture specific to Japan or was never intended to be viewed by a western audience. NGE in fact is interpreted fairly differently by Japanese fans and Western fans, mostly due to the extensive use Christian and Gnostic symbols which carry extremely different connotations to the two groups. Apparently "Serial Experiments Lain" was written to capitalize on this divide, although I'm pretty sure most of the show went over every one's heads (mine included), regardless of nationality. Maybe its easier for me as an outsider to agree with Satoshi Kon's attacks on cute culture, whereas if I was from Japan I would feel differently. But given how much I love American art that attacks American culture (or Swedish music that does the same) maybe not.

At this point I'm running out of steam, and I'm slowly realizing that the point I'm trying to make is that Jack Greenleaf has a solo album that, in some ways, deals with the weird America/Japan dynamic in an interesting, catchy, and heartfelt manner. You can listen to it here. I highly recommend that you do so. Also, Eli is writing a paper dealing with some of the topics I touched on earlier, so I'm sure that he could add a great deal to this discussion, and back it up with more credible citations than youtube videos and faulty memories.

Well that's it for now. More zany ranting coming sooner. More music coming later.

-Ian

Isolation is OUT

2011-01-31T21:07:00.000-08:00

The day has finally come. Our second album, "Isolation" is now officially available for public consumption here.

Isolation is album number two. It was composed from Spring 2008 to Spring 2010. It was recorded Summer 2010. It is a concept album about isolation, solitude, and loneliness. We recommend you listen to it by yourself, on headphones, with no breaks.

We would like to thank our parents for supporting us and putting up with the noise. We would also to thank our girlfriends for being patient with us and dealing with being stuck in a room with four sweaty guys when they decided to visit. Thanks to Felix Walworth, Oliver Kalb, and Lucas McCaslin for adding their voices and being enthusiastic about the project. Thanks to Jesse Goldberg and Mike Gutterman for recording trumpet and guitar solos respectively. Thanks to Henry Crawford, Andrew Napier, and Preston Wollner for making creative suggestions and pushing us to do our best. Thanks to Richard Gin, Jacob Brown, Miguel Blardony, Mamade Torabelly, and Donni Henriksen for the promotion. Thanks to all those who gave us positive feedback on our first record and pestered us about a follow up. Finally, thank you for listening to "Isolation".

This album is dedicated to every loner, hikikomori, recluse, shut-in, and introvert.

credits

released 01 February 2011
Written, performed, recorded, produced, and mixed by Random Child.
Drums recorded at Newkirk Studies by Ben Rice
Concept and lyrics by Ian Cory
Artwork by Max Coburn
Logo by Daniel De La Faye

Life In A Bigger Prison

2011-01-20T22:07:00.000-08:00

I present you with the Random Child bandcamp. Pretty ain't it? As you can see the site contains the artwork for "Isolation" which was created by Max Coburn. Also, there's a new song! Holy Shit! It's called 'Life In A Bigger Prison' and it's the first single from "Isolation". It's a hard hitter, one of the first we wrote for the album collaboratively and we're all really happy to share it with you. Oh, and the album's done. Just thought you should know.

Year In Review 2010

2010-12-30T17:40:00.000-08:00

It looks like yet another year is drawing to a close. Time to review how things went for Random Child in 2010.

Most of the year was spent recording our second full length record, "Isolation". Most of my memories of the summer are of Eli, Max, and I sitting in Jack's bedroom obsessing over details and eating outrageous burritos. Through out the fall, Jack and I continued to mix the album, and now in the dead of winter I can say that we are almost completely finished with the album. I swear. I'm not kidding. 3 songs are 100% done, and the rest are close behind them. Here's a trailer to prove it.

Outside of "Isolation" we've managed to stay fairly active. I did a third interview for promoting "Treatment", which is now over a year old. We have about 12 songs either finished, or in progress for the next record, and a few other spare tunes that will surface later. As always I have a lot of plans for the next few records, and a great deal of this year was spent outlining exactly how some of these ideas would be executed. Stay tuned, things are going to get interesting soon.

Beyond Random Child we've all been increasingly hardworking on other projects. Jack and I have Small Wonder, Eli has Breadwinner, and Max has his Level Music project. All three of these are things I would highly recommend checking out.

Plans for 2011 include the following: releasing "Isolation", playing shows in the summer, and continuing to write for the 3rd Random Child album, which already has a concept, a title, and a very solid direction.

Thanks for being patient with us this year, next year will be a lot more exciting.

Vidyah Games

2010-12-21T22:29:00.000-08:00

I've wanted to do a short write up of how specific video games have influenced me both musically and philosophically, but I've recently stumbled across a series of articles analyzing Chrono Trigger from an existentialist point of view that does a better job than I ever could. I realize that it's something of a cop out to post links to someone else's hard work without supplying any original material, but I seriously cannot think of too much to add to these exceptionally well written pieces. You may find them here, here, here, here, here, and here. Warning, there are spoilers, and it helps to have some basic knowledge of existentialism. If you got through a philosophy class in high school, you should be fine even if you don't understand all of the terms he references (don't worry, I didn't either). My one suggestion is that perhaps the New Game Plus mechanic could be looked at as an engine of eternal recurrence. Just food for thought.

I discovered these articles while reading the works of a similarly brilliant writer who goes by the name of "pitchfork". No not THAT pitchfork. Last New Years I spent the majority of the night feeling sick to my stomach, and stumbled across this review of Final Fantasy VII, the first game for playstation that I ever owned. I was hooked and have subsequently read his reviews of the Final Fantasy series multiple times. You can find them here. He has also done reviews for Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, which are equally interesting. Once again, spoilers. My only real criticism of this man's work is that he doesn't spend nearly as much time on the music of these games as I would like, but given my bias this is a flaw I'm willing to overlook.

Hope you enjoy geeking out.

-Ian.

Ian's Top Ten Lists for 2010

2010-12-19T11:57:00.001-08:00

Best Albums:

10. Diamond Eyes by Deftones

9. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy by Kanye West

8. Heliocentric/Anthropocentric by The Ocean

7. Option Paralysis by The Dillinger Escape Plan

6. At The Edge of Time by Blind Guardian

5. Kollaps Tradionxales by A Silver Mount Zion

4. High Violet by The National

3. The Monitor by Titus Andronicus

2. Eparistera Daimones by Triptykon

1. The Suburbs by Arcade Fire

Best songs:

10. Farewell, Mona Lisa by The Dillinger Escape Plan

9. Diamond Eyes by Deftones

8. Daddy Fat Sax by Big Boi

7. A Voice In The Dark by Blind Guardian

6. Bloodbuzz Ohio by The National

5. There Is A Light by A Silver Mount Zion

4. Ready To Start by Arcade Fire

3. A More Perfect Union by Titus Andronicus

2. The Prolonging by Triptykon

1. Sisters by Pain of Salvation

Best live performances:

5. Triptykon

4. Devin Townsend

3. Transatlantic

2. Isis

1. Arcade Fire

Screaming For Vengeance

2010-12-15T21:55:00.000-08:00

Here is an essay I wrote on the use of harsh vocals in heavy metal. I would like to note that I am a huge fan of harsh vocals, and a user of them myself, so none of this should be taken as an attack, but rather as an analysis and examination. Please enjoy!

If you were to ask a layperson about heavy metal, one of the first things they would mention is the unmistakable sound of what are often referred to as “cookie monster vocals”. This humorous, if somewhat condescending, term is a reference to what can be more accurately called harsh vocals. Growling, screaming, screeching, squealing, shouting, gurgling and shrieking are all fairly common place in the more extreme forms of heavy metal. To an outsider these vocal styles can seem shocking, frightening, disgusting and even a little bit funny. Such a distinct and unique vocal style does not appear from thin air, and harsh vocals have a long and gradual history.

Although harsh vocals are most commonly associated with heavy metal, they only truly began to appear once heavy metal began to cross-pollinate with other genres. In the early days of heavy metal most vocalists could still be classified as singers although their voices often contained grit they still sung recognizable notes and in many ways weren’t all that far away from blues and rock singers from the 50’s and 60’s. The first band considered to heavy metal to lay the seeds for harsh vocals were Motorhead, a band equally inspired by hard rock and punk. Their singer, Lemmy is notorious for his raspy singing. While Lemmy still sang notes, his range was incredibly limited and most of the notes were obscured by his thick nicotine damaged voice. This lack of technical ability in traditional singing was the first main ingredient for the introduction of harsh vocals. Motorhead also provided the second main ingredient to the evolution of harsh vocals; speed. While other heavy metal bands had occasionally played at fast tempos, Motorhead permanently stayed at high speeds, forcing Lemmy to focus less on melody and more on rhythmically assaulting his lines. The third component needed to bring harsh vocals fully into the realm of heavy metal was an artistic goal or purpose for their existence. This meaning was created by Venom, who released their debut album Welcome to Hell in 1981. Although earlier metal bands such as Black Sabbath addressed satanic subjects, they did so from the perspective of scared Christians. Venom on the other hand played up the demonic themes for shock value, and this was reflected in their music. Singer Cronos growls through his lyrics with next to no attempt to keep pitches consistent or even audible. This leap in extremity for shock value would open the floodgates to thousands upon thousands of other metal bands to push the boundaries of their lyrics and vocals to the edge.

From this point on the heavy metal scene became an arms race between bands to see who could play faster, louder, and more extreme than the last. As American bands began to form in cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Tampa they began to take influence from the growing hardcore punk scene. This fusion of the speed and aggression of Minor Threat and Discharge with the technical precision of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest brought about a style commonly known as Thrash Metal. Thrash bands such as Slayer, Metallica, and Dark Angel quickly learned that fitting coherent melodies over their high speed and increasingly chromatic playing style was both difficult and out of place. Instead they took the shouted vocals of hardcore punk and turned them into a staccato bark. Other bands in the Tampa scene quickly pushed this to the next level by lowering the pitch of the vocals down to a roar. Bands such as Morbid Angel, Deicide, and Death combined this guttural growling with lyrics straight out of horror films or H.P. Lovecraft stories. This strand became death metal, while in Scandinavia, bands such as Mayhem, Darkthrone, and Burzum pushed harsh vocals to the opposite end of the spectrum by changing the bark into a full high pitched shriek in order to emulate what they believed the voices of the dead would sound like. From here, the two extremes crossbred and evolved into the current metal landscape where harsh vocals have become so ubiquitous that when bands started to reintroduce clean melodic singing again they were hailed as groundbreaking.

Now that we have established the time line of harsh vocals let’s take a closer look at how and why they are used in the current heavy metal paradigm. When asked the question “why use harsh vocals” the metal community has three common answers: they fits aesthetically where clean vocals would not, they fit the lyrical content, and that they are cathartic and help express specific emotions that clean vocals cannot. This first argument is almost universally true. As death metal became increasingly dissonant and chromatic over the course of the 1990s the vocals became equally less human sounding and the chances of a singer being able to find a melody over the churning chaos became less likely. There is definitely something to be said for the human personification of such abrasive music being every bit as ugly and unpleasant as the music itself. The other two explanations are deeply flawed and are in dire need of examination.

First the subject matter argument. It would be difficult to argue that the growls and shrieks of extreme metal vocalists do not bring to mind demons, monsters and animals. The connection between harsh vocals and satanic lyrics is fairly clear, however this is not the only lyrical subject used in extreme metal. The next most common and publicized lyrical subjects in extreme metal are horror and gore themes. Horror themed lyrics about zombies and monsters fit in the same manner as Satanic lyrics, but connecting less super-natural subject matter to harsh vocals takes more of mental reach. One perspective on the matter is that music depicting the thoughts and actions of serial killers should represent what it would sound like inside the head of those who are mentally ill. In this respect, it would make sense that the voices in a serial killers head would be distorted and inhuman sounding, as to match with their lack of empathy for other humans. Through this interpretation, it is not surprising that Cannibal Corpse have been as long lasting and successful considering that they are nothing if not aesthetically consistent.

This line of thinking quickly becomes difficult once more varied lyrical subjects are examined. Take the French band Gojira for example. Although the band’s name is derived from the classic Japanese monster movie, most of their lyrics address environmental issues and the value of living life to the fullest. It is incredibly difficult to reconcile these positive subjects if harsh vocals are meant to portray the lyrical topic. Gojira are hardly the only band to focus on subjects other than horror or the devil. Other examples include Nile, who focuses on Egyptian mythology, Obscura who discuss theoretical physics and new age philosophy, or The Ocean who use references to Charles Darwin or Richard Dawkins to criticize organized religion. While these bands all play music that requires harsh vocals from a musical standpoint, there is a clear dissonance between form and content.

The second flawed argument is that harsh vocals are capable of expressing emotional intensity in a way that normal vocals are unable to. At first glance this explanation does seem to hold water, but under closer examination it runs into a few problems. Harsh vocals definitely convey a sense of intensity that isn’t found in clean vocals. However if harsh vocals are the only type of vocals that a band uses, there is no tension before the release and any real chance of a cathartic experience is lost. The second problem with this theory is that harsh vocals in heavy metal have very little to do with what an angry person actually sounds like. Compare and contrast a vocalist like Ian MacKaye (from Minor Threat) with a vocalist like David Vincent (from Morbid Angel). MacKaye’s vocals are shouted at the top of his lungs making it easy to hear what he’s saying. David Vincent on the other hand obscures most of his vowels by growling, making him sound more threatening but harder to understand. In this way growling and other harsh vocal techniques actually obscure the emotional content of the song rather than amplifying it. It is almost as if heavy metal vocalists are afraid of actually communicating and hide their message behind volume and distortion.

At this point it should be clear that it is difficult to reconcile harsh vocals as anything other than an aesthetic choice. There is little in the way of a greater artistic purpose to the style, and perhaps there does not need to be. Why then do heavy metal bands use harsh vocals? Most likely because the bands that they listened to use them. Harsh vocals are simply the normal level of discourse in the genre, and newer bands use them without questioning the artistic significance. Because of this the genre will quickly become trapped in a shouting match with no real content being added to the discussion. Are we perhaps at risk of overanalyzing the subject at hand? Personally I do not believe so. Heavy metal has long been a genre ignored by musical academics, and is even more unwilling to cast a critical eye onto itself. For the genre to move forward and prevent artistic stagnation it needs to take a look into it’s own conventions and ask why they are so committed to them. If bands ultimately decide that aesthetics only are reason enough to use harsh vocals, then nothing is truly lost, but through this introspection who knows what could be gained?

-Ian

Finals Week. Yay.

2010-12-12T21:58:00.000-08:00

Good news everyone! Mixing is coming along very well. Jack and I have been fairly diligent about getting together and working through one song at a time. There are still some things giving us problems, but I swear to god that there will be new material from 'Isolation', as well as artwork, on the internet soon.

I recently started up a tumblr to take up a lot of my smaller, less substantial blogging needs. if you're interested in what youtube videos or weird pictures I'm digging at the moment please check it out here.

Small Wonder, a band containing Jack and I as well as old friend Henry Crawford, recently played our first show. You can also download our first EP on our bandcamp. It's dark, catchy rock music. Please enjoy.

I finished my yearly Top 10 list, which I will post someday soon. Most of you have probably read it on my facebook page already, but for those who read this and aren't friends with me on facebook, it'll be up shortly.

Thanks for your patience and have a nice week.

-Ian Cory.

The Suburbs

2010-11-16T19:50:00.000-08:00

Here, is an essay I wrote about "The Suburbs" by Arcade Fire. It's far and away my favorite album of the year, and I had a lot of fun writing this. Please tell me what you think:

In the year 2010 discussions of the album format seem almost outdated and antiqued. At this moment in history artists are branching out and exploring new ways of releasing music, many reverting to the older singles model that preceded the album. However it is precisely this decline in the album’s relevance that makes discussion of the format so important. In a sense, the division between the album as a collection of songs and an album as a unified statement has become increasingly clear in recent times, and artists are quickly choosing sides. One of the leading lights of the “unified statement” faction is the Canadian band Arcade Fire and their most recent release, 2010’s The Suburbs.

One of the most important factors in the cohesiveness of an album is thematic consistency, which The Suburbs has in spades. One of the main themes, fittingly enough is the conflict between the new and the old. Much as the album format is anachronistic in the digital age, Win Butler’s lyrics focus on how the memories and ideals of his generation are quickly being swept away and replaced with overwhelming and impersonal information age technology. This theme is addressed on nearly every level of the album’s composition. On the lyrical front, some songs deal with memories of childhood and innocence (The Suburbs, Suburban War) while others detail the horror of the advancing technology and the apathy it brings (Deep Blue, We Used To Wait, Modern Man). Compositionally this conflict is illustrated through the use of both rustic sounding acoustic instruments like harpsichords and string sections and more modern sounding synthesizers and drum machines to augment their traditional rock band instrumentation. Finally the production also draws attention to the divide between the old and the modern. The band reportedly recorded the album normally and then recorded a vinyl of the album playing in order to capture the ambience of listening to a vinyl record.

One particular song that captures this discomfort with the current paradigm is Modern Man, a song that would have been a fairly standard midpaced rocker if written by any other band. Instead Arcade Fire twists the song’s composition to fit their lyrical subject. During the song, Win Butler repeats the line “Something don’t feel right” multiple times, and indeed for the average listener something about the song will seem somewhat off. The verses of the song alternate between a standard 4/4 meter and a measure of 9/8, pushing the rhythm of the song slightly off balance. On first inspection one could even mistake this strange shift as a skip of a record, something that the lyrics themselves reference (“Like a record that’s skipping I’m the modern man”). At the risk of over analyzing the piece, the fact that the odd measure is one of 9/8 is particularly interesting. The meter is in a sense, oversaturated, much like how people are over stimulated by the massive scope of information available to them.

These repeating lyrical themes act as a thread, tying the album together. The most obvious, and pervasive, repeating lyric is the constant references to “the suburbs”. The album is divided and booked by songs that look back at childhood in the suburbs, first with nostalgia, then with guilt and regret, and finally acceptance. These three songs (The Suburbs, Suburban War, and The Suburbs Continued) shape the album into a narrative arc. The title track introduces the listener to both the album and setting for most of the songs. The lyrics of this song look back at childhood and despair over the loss that aging brings. Butler sings about “moving past the feeling and into the night”. The feeling he’s talking about is the exuberance and innocence of childhood, while the night is used throughout the album to symbolize defeat, harsh realities, and fear of an oncoming calamity. Suburban War takes this lens towards the past and darkens the mood substantially. Instead of focusing on the positives of the past, this song addresses a sense of guilt at losing friendships over time. As the song and years go on, the divide between the childhood friends grow until “the cities [they] live in/could be distant stars”. The final track, Suburbs Continued ends the album on a somewhat more upbeat note. Despite all of the wasted years and lost connections, Win sings that he wouldn’t change a thing if given a chance and “would only waste them again”. The first two of these songs also share a verse of lyrics (“In the suburbs I learned to drive/And you told me we’d never survive) while the bookend title tracks share the same chords and melody. These repeating lyrics help establish a consistent and continuous narrative across the album. By connecting different songs to each other lyrically, Arcade Fire forces the listener to cross-reference various each song in order to understand the full picture that they are painting.

Some of the connections between songs are far more overt, as is the case of the two dual song cycles that appear in the middle and end of the album. Both of these paired songs (Half Light and The Sprawl) make use of the same lyrical subject, but approached from a different angle. In both cases, the first song will be a softer more somber affair, using very little other than strings or vocals to convey the melody. The second track in both cases is a driving dance tunes that make use of the band’s electronic and modern influences. This contrast brings back the conflict between the past and the present, which is also reflected in the lyrics of the Half Light pair. The first song describes memories of youthful adventures through the suburbs just as night falls. The darkness finally arrives in Half Light II (No Celebration), which describes a nearly post-apocalyptic world where “the markets crashed” and San Francisco has been wiped off the map. If Half Light I focused on the twilight of childhood, No Celebration describes the twilight of civilization. Where in Half Light Butler sang about “streets that we know so well”, he spends the song second lamenting how “this city has changed so much/since I was a little child”.

The Sprawl cycle reverses this old/new dichotomy. The first song, Flatland describes a search to find something from the past to hold onto, be it a childhood home or a playground. Ultimately the search is futile, as even when they do find remnants of their past all of “the emotions are dead”. While all of the songs so far have cast the past in a positive light, Mountains Beyond Mountains takes a much harsher view of life in the suburbs. Here, the lyrics describe how the sprawl can stifle creativity, emotion, and expression. Unlike the rest of the album, this song uses the image of night as a means of escape rather than fear, begging, “I need the darkness, someone please cut the light”.

This song shows the band’s maturity to show both sides of the story, using the same images in different contexts to bring about different meanings. Given the song’s late placement on the album, it also serves as a means of showing growth from beginning to end. At the beginning of the record the band pines for the past and rejects the changes brought about in the present, and by the end, while they certainly aren’t enthusiastic about the way things are heading they accept that life goes on and in order to live one has to “move through the pain”. This acceptance shouldn’t be mistaken for resignation or defeat though, as the band demonstrates that even in the blinding and flashing lights of the present there are still traces of the beautiful past that they remember.

Spooky Update

2010-10-31T18:22:00.000-07:00

Hey there. It's been a while hasn't it? I've had a bunch ideas for blog posts over the last few months, but school and procrastination have gotten in the way of me actually putting fingers to keyboard. While I'm not in the mood to an in depth blog post here are a few things that I've been up to:

-Working on new songs. One of the great things about going to music school is that every new thing you learn in class is one more trick up your songwriting sleeve. I've been applying some of the concepts I've been learning in "Pop/Jazz Theory" to my songs, so expect a lot more extended chords in upcoming Random Child material.

-Drumming for an indie rock band. This is a new collaboration between myself, Jack Greenleaf, and Henry Crawford. It's a lot of fun so far, as it is both a reunion of sorts and an exploration into styles that are new and fresh for all three of us.

-Writing a graphic novel. This monster of a long term project is coming along slowly but surely. I have no idea when this will see the light of day.

-Being a really shitty metalhead. Lately I've been casting a very critical eye towards the conventions, practices and ideologies in the heavy metal world, and things aren't really looking good. This will definitely warrant a longer, more in depth blog post, but here are some of the smaller issues I've been working over in my head:

Harsh Vocals. Why do we use them and what do they really mean?
Sexism and misogyny in metal. Let's just say that I will probably never get an interview with Revolver magazine after this one.
Lyrical complexity/maturity. I'm sick of empty shock value from bands who pass themselves off as serious artists
Harsh Vocals. No seriously, why the hell do we keep using them? I mean, they sound cool, but has anyone ever looked at this from a critical stand point? What are we trying to say with this?

So yeah, a lot of metal purists are going to be pissed, but I think it's important to really look at things we love and figure out how they work.

Anyway, more info on Isolation will come fairly soon I'm sure. Except to see Random Child expanding across the internet soon.

-Ian.

P.S. happy halloween if you're into that sort of thing.

Treatment Remix Update

2010-09-05T17:16:00.000-07:00

Hey all!

So I know I haven't posted much (really anything) on this blog before. That's mainly because Ian has this shit on lock. Anyway, at the moment I've started doing some Random Child related activities all by my lonesome. As Ian mentioned before, I have started diligently working on my remix of Treatment! I did a quick trial before I left for Bard (which is going great by the way) and in mere minutes, the beginning of Plague sounded fuller and more alive than on the original recording. I'm mainly going to be working on fixing the drums so they are not as massively compressed as they currently are as well as reaffirming the fact that there is bass THROUGHOUT the record!

To that end, this weekend I completed my initial remixes of the first three songs on the album (Subjects, Illusions and Stasis respectively) and they sound pretty darned good if I do say so myself. I had to add some new keyboard/synth parts to Stasis because it seems that they did come along with the .wavs from Galuminum. Oh! On that subject, I should say, we fully respect and are completely thankful for all of the work Jeff Berner put in at Galuminum Foil studios helping us craft the record. In the end, Treatment was the victim of all of our shallow pockets and NOT in any way a result of poor engineering or studio quality. The goal of this little project is just to give Treatment the mixin' that it deserves, but that we cheap people were not able to afford it.

The take home message of this post I suppose is that progress is being made! I'll be bouncing my finished rough remixes back and forth to Ian and Jack for approval and critiques as they are completed. We still aren't sure how we're going to be releasing this remix yet. There was some talk of putting it together with some tracks that friends of the band were doing involving chopping up and more traditionally remixing songs on Isolation. At the moment, that's probably the most likely scenario in which you will be able to hear this stuff, so keep on the lookout for future updates! I should be trying to have the last three songs "finished" by next weekend.

Hope you're excited!

- Random Child [E]

Tracking/Mixing/Mourning

2010-08-28T21:46:00.000-07:00

As far as I know, we are now done with tracking for Isolation and are currently working on rough mixes. Eli completed the first rough mix a short while ago. Jack and I, who are both in Chicago for the school year, will be working on the next one together over the coming months. We're hoping to get all of this finished up by the winter. We've also been bouncing around various ideas for album art and release format. More info on those things as decisions are being finalized.

2010 continues to suck balls for artistic people as legendary animation director Satoshi Kon recently passed away due to pancreatic cancer. I had just gotten into his work this year so I can't say that I've had a long time to get attached to the guy, but it's a brutal shock none the less. His movies, and utterly brilliant TV show "Paranoia Agent", tend to deal with issues of perception, the thin line between fiction and reality, and multiple personalities. On top of this he frequently goes out of his way to fuck with people who expect more traditional anime and makes some pretty brutal attacks on Japanese culture along the way. I recommend watching "Paranoia Agent" and following it up with "Perfect Blue". Be warned, the man has no problems showing you the full extent of the violence and trauma being inflicted on his characters so if you have a weak stomach you might want to watch "Millennium Actress" one of his more sentimental pieces instead.

If Satoshi Kon's death wasn't bad enough, Nergal of polish death metal band, Behemoth has been diagnosed with leukemia. He's in treatment for it now, but jeez. Not a good year for metal in the least. Although I don't share all of his spiritual beliefs I've always considered Nergal to be a smart and well read individual, who is also capable of making some truly frightening noises with his voice. Behemoth's last album, Evangelion (no relation to the ground breaking anime) was one of my favorite death metal albums of the year and I would recommend it to anyone interested in some extremely epic brutal music.

Oh by the way, Eli has some wacky plans for some of the music we did on "Treatment" that you might be interested in. Keep in touch.

-Ian

I believe in Rock songs

2010-08-06T15:02:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw Arcade Fire at Madison Square Garden. This was a big night of firsts for me. While most of my friends have seen Arcade Fire multiple times, this was the first time I had a chance to see them live. This was also the first time I had been to a concert at MSG, as the Iron Maiden concert I planned to attend sold out instantly. Finally this was the first time I went to a rock concert with my parents. My Dad has been a fan of the band since I first got into them and my mom had never been to a rock concert and was curious.

Now as you can verify on youtube, the show was fucking awesome. The band is great at overpowering the audience as well as pulling off intricate arrangements, some times simultaneously. The crowd was eating it all up too. They could have played their entire discography straight through and people would have let them. As much as I love the recorded versions of their songs, I could tell that this band was built for live performances. It is their natural habitat.

At some point, I think it was during "Rebellion", I realized that this band is doing exactly what they love, and they've gotten to the biggest stage in the world doing it. And on top of this, the music they were making is both compelling and extremely high quality. It suddenly hit me that Rock music is the way. You can make great music that's true to everything you believe, while still appealing to a large audience. These are not mutually exclusive and they shouldn't be treated as such. While I still plan on writing wacky challenging prog metal, I am no longer afraid of writing simple catchy songs. I believe in Rock songs.

-Ian

Eli, Jack, and I had a meeting discussing our what we have left to work on the album. It's coming along really well and most of the things we have left to record are very nitpicky. Of course the devil is in the details and we still have to mix/master it, but it's coming along.

Drums are done

2010-07-21T19:50:00.000-07:00

Today I spent eight hours recording the drums for "Isolation" and now they are finished.

We recorded at Newkirk Studios in Brooklyn.

It's a nice little place and we had a great time.

I am throughly exhausted.

Not too much else to say.

Whew

2010-07-16T22:29:00.001-07:00

Things sure have been busy in Random Land for the past few months. Outside of three songs we are finished with basic tracking for Vocals. Nearly all of the bass is done. Most of the guitar is finished (except for one song) and we've recorded trumpet, Jew's Harp, and a whole variety of household items for other songs. In fact we have one song that's basically ready for mixing. Next week I go to Newkirk Studios to record drums for all seven songs. I'd previously recorded at Newkirk when I played drums in Earth Defense Force, the world's greatest band, two summers ago. It's a nice little place and the people who work there are very chill and professional.

Lately we (Jack, Eli, Max, and I) have been working on the epic title track. The sessions for that song have been brutal and exhausting. It's hard for me to be even remotely objective in addressing the quality of the work we've been doing since it's been so brain melting. Over the course of the weekend I'm hoping that my ears will recover from the abuse. I'm planning on going to see Inception tomorrow with Jack, Eli, Henry Crawford, and Oliver and Felix from Mother Courage. Outside of that, I hope to relax by playing video games (Final Fantasy IV at the moment), reading comics (currently reading "The Infinity Gauntlet" which is so over the top that I can't help but love it).

I've also been working on a rap tune on the side. Yes you read that right. I'm sure I just lost half of my metal fanbase with that statement, but don't worry, Random Child won't be turning into Limp Bizkit anytime soon. I will keep these two projects completely separate, for the sake of both of them. Once I'm done with the song I'll be releasing it online for free. If people like it, I'll do more. If people don't like, I'll still do more, but I won't tell anyone. It's pretty much just a project for my ego, but considering the genre, that really isn't too much of a problem.

I've also been writing some ideas for a comic book that probably won't see the light for years. Blame Alan Moore.

That's all for now. I'm too tired to rant about any of my favorite bands right now.

Update/On Star Shock

2010-06-23T15:11:00.000-07:00

Recording has been really moving along lately. Yesterday Max and Eli finished up some more bass tracks and keyboards, we fixed some of the smaller editing issues, and most importantly recorded a guest guitar solo by Banzai's Michael Gutterman. One of the songs on the record, mentioned on this blog a few times, is heavily influenced by Iron Maiden. Originally we were going to have Jack do a solo, but Eli and I later decided that Gutterman, a fellow 80's metal enthusiast, would be more fitting for the song. Gutterman spent some time laying down the basics of the solo, and then Max went nuts with guitar harmonies. There were multiple times when everyone in the room was compelled to shout and raise the metal horns. Nothing is better than the sound of harmonized guitars, especially in natural minor. Next up on our plate is laying down the click track map for the side long epic title track. Fun.

Recently I've been ruminating on the concept of obsessive fans. I've been thinking about how extreme fandom, and how the feeling of being star struck have come to exist. Why do people wait for hours, or days, just for the chance of seeing (not even speaking or hanging out) with an actor who played a character in a movie they liked? Why do fans, like myself, freak out and lose the ability to speak coherently when confronted by one of their favorite musicians? Initially I thought that it was because of the work that said musician/celebrity/etc had done i.e. "I can't believe that I'm talking to the guy who wrote and recorded Remedy Lane". But after thinking about for a while I realized that if this was the case then I wouldn't be able to talk to a lot of my friends, most of whom are talented and creative people. Sure none of my friends have reached something the quality of say, "Panopticon", but I think that if they did, I would just congratulate them and probably get into some elaborate conversations about their work instead of stuttering cliche fanspeak.

I think that the reason we freak out when we see the people we idolize is because seeing them in person validates their existence in reality. This is especially true for actors. We become absorbed into the characters of a film, and when we see an actor in person it bridges the gap between the imagination and reality. The same thing happens with musicians. When we listen to albums we ascribe a human personality to the music. This is aided by the lyrics, but even with instrumental music we find ways to anthropomorphize the music we are listening to. Seeing the performer or composer in person connects the two worlds, one of the imagination, and one of the physical. That's why if I ever meet Edward Norton I would be scared shitless. Because in my mind he (SPOILERS FOR FIGHT CLUB) is Tyler Durden. Same thing if I met the guys in Neurosis, I'm not sure my brain would be able to reconcile the near spiritual elements of their music with their actual personalities.

Whatever happened to the band of tomorrow?

2010-06-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to the last concert I will ever see of one of my all time favorite bands. It was my fourth time seeing them, and my first in nearly three years. This was the last time not because I was disappointed in their performance, or because I no longer enjoy the band's music, or because I have lost my hearing (Although this show certainly did some damage). No, this was the last time I would attend a concert by this band because after this tour is finished, the band is calling it quits.

This band is Isis, and this is my way of grieving their passing.

Do you ever have the experience of hearing about a band everywhere you turn? That's how Isis and I were first introduced. I was 14 at the time, in freshmen year of high school. I frequented Tool fan forums and from these sites I was introduced to a lot of the bands that would shape the majority of my listening in high school including Meshuggah, Opeth, The Mars Volta, Sigur Ros, Fantomas, and of course, Isis. The name Isis kept popping up everywhere, even in places I would never have expected it, like hip webcomics. While at summer camp, I asked a good friend of mine, Matt Weinberg of Gilded Age fame, if he had any of their music. He said that he did but warned that "I'm not sure I want to show you them because you're going to end up liking them more than any of the other bands you listen to." He was right of course.

At the time I was musically confused. I listened to my fair share of heavy music and had long decided that Random Child (at that time more of an idea than an actual band) was going to be dark, heavy and angry sounding. At the same time I had fallen in love with bands like Radiohead and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. This passion for subtle, yet emotionally intense, music was causing me to question my loyalty to pure unadulterated brutality. I was unsure of what I wanted to do, I knew I had to combine the two if I were to stay sane, but I had no idea how. Enter: "Panopticon".

Matt lent me "Panopticon", and my parents bought me "Oceanic" for my 15th birthday both within the span of a few weeks. These two albums had a profound effect on the way that I saw my future in music. The songs were long and complex like Tool, atmospheric and melodic like post rock, but brutality heavy and slow in a way that was totally new to me. I knew that playing blazing fast was a good way to crush listeners, but Isis showed me that slower tempos were even better. I would listen to one or both of these records daily, absorbing every note and every detail. I memorized every variation of Aaron Harris's hypnotic and minimalist drumming. I modeled my own harsh vocals after Aaron Turner's guttural bellows. I let every drop of sound surround me in a hazy of ambiance and texture.

And ever since the band has been an inspiration. When "In The Absence of Truth" came out I spent hours listening to it, pushing myself to understand the complex structures and mind bending progressions. Although I didn't enjoy it as much as the previous two, I loved how different the album was while sounding distinctly like Isis. Every time I saw the band live my creative juices were rejuvenated and I discovered more hidden treasures within their songs. Whenever I needed to pump myself up for an upcoming event I would watch "Clearing The Eye", their live dvd. Isis were my role models through out high school. They showed me that it was possible to be in a metal band and be articulate, both musically and in person. Aaron Turner's interest in philosophy fueled my own, and I cut my hair short and grew my beard in an attempt to fit the Isis "look".

And so last night I made the journey to Webster Hall in order to pay my respect to the band that had done so much for me. The set they played touched on all of their full lengths, even their debut "Celestial". I was standing front row, directly in front of Jeff Caxide, the band's insanely melodic bassist (which was great for their performance of In Fiction, in which Mr. Caxide gets the most ear time) and very close to Mike Gallagher, the guitarist, who with his perma-stubble and strong jaw line always seemed like he just arrived from the set of a western. I was expecting the concert to be a depressing affair with one of the bands more somber tracks closing the show, but instead the atmosphere was one of triumph and celebration. By the time that the band got to their closing number, Aaron Turner announced that they would only have time for one more song because there was a dance party happening in the venue next. If that doesn't sum up what's wrong with this world, I don't know what does. Regardless I left the show feeling empowered, and even worked up the courage to approach Mr. Turner and give him my thanks.

Thankfully, Isis's recorded output will still be here to inspire and overwhelm listeners for years to come. As I write this, I'm currently making an epic trip of listening to the entire discography in order (just finished "Hym", that riff rules). And so I salute you, brave explorers of the murky and uncharted depths of experimental metal. I will do my best as a fan, and as a fellow musician, to preserve and honor the legacy that you have given us, and to carry the torch onward into the unknown. Whatever music the various members of Isis decide to create from this point on it is sure to be as thought provoking and forward thinking as always. And so finally, an answer the question posed in "Grinning Mouths": we are here, we are watching, even with tears in our eyes, and we will never forget.

-Ian.

Recording Update (and some other things)

2010-06-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

Yesterday (happy belated slayer day by the way) Jack, Eli, Max and I got together at Jack's place to work on our up coming album, "Isolation". We spent about seven hours recording before we called it a night, although some of that time was spent purchasing and consuming burritos. Because we did so much work, I thought it would be nice to fill you guys in on our activities.

Most of the work yesterday was spent on recording the guitars for "Shadow Boxing", which is a tune that I wrote pretty much on my own. There's a lot of parts, and a fair slew of meter changes, so some of the song took a while to perfect. Most of the basic guitar tracks on the song are now finished, but there's some going to be more fleshing out for certain sections, including a guitar duel between Jack and Eli. Jack and I also recorded some keyboards for the song, including an incredibly epic string section. We also finished up recording guitar for "Misanthrope", which is the obligatory mosh song on the album.

However the star of the day was Max, who finished bass for three songs, two of which he had never played before in his life. The guy is a monster on bass and not just in a Billy Sheehan way. Max added melodic elements to the songs as well as filling in the low end. he also helped add some new harmonic textures to some of the more static chord progressions. To hear him in his natural element, you should go to his last.fm and download all of his albums. They rock.

That's pretty much it for recording news. Jack recently got me hooked on "Paranoia Agent", which is a really intense and harrowing anime series that you should treat yourself to. Also, Isis are breaking up. That sucks. More on that after I attend their last show in NYC.

-Ian.

Mistakes/RIP DIO

2010-05-16T18:52:00.000-07:00

These last few weeks have been an insane whirlwind of activity for me. I've been writing tons of music, a lot of which you will hear in the future. I've been taking a lot of tests, most of which I did well on. And finally on Friday I finished my second year of college followed by moving out of the student dorms on Saturday. All of this was building up to my flight from Chicago to New York today. Sadly I misread my ticket and missed my flight, only to find that all other flights to NYC were full for the day. So now I have to wake up extra early tomorrow for my return home. While this was certainly a buzz kill from the fun I had been having this weekend, including a long and thought provoking conversation with Kevin Gannon, it was even more infuriating for personal reasons. You see, I absolutely hate making mistakes. Every time I make a major mistake I will tear myself apart over it for days at a time before letting it recede from my memory. Of course some mistakes will resurface to bug me later as well, leading to some pretty serious guilt issues. Because of this I tend to be very careful when trying new things and often rely on other people to help me through new experiences in order to make sure that I don't fuck things up. This is a subject that I'm going to be addressing in my lyrics sometime soon.

On a less personal note, Ronnie James Dio is dead and that's fucked up. If you don't know who Ronnie James Dio is you're probably don't have even a passing interest in heavy metal and therefore I feel sorry for you. Put simply, Dio is one of the most influential metal singers ever, due in part to his contributions to Black Sabbath after Ozzy left, and his long lasting solo career. His lyrics were extremely fantasy influenced, often to the point of incomprehensibility, but he also wrote one of the greatest pieces of metal lyrics ever: Heaven & Hell, the title track from his first album with Black Sabbath. I listened to that album countless times over last summer, and it easily competes with the best of the Ozzy era. Nothing I say about Dio will be even remotely close to imparting just how awesome he is. You're just going to have to go and listen to his music yourself.

If Random Child plays live this summer, expect a Dio-era Sabbath cover.

Musing about Prog Rock and hero worship

2010-04-21T22:27:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to a Transatlantic concert at Park West in Chicago. First off, let me say that more venues need to be nice neighborhoods. Maybe I'm just a giant wimp, but it was very pleasant relief to be in a clearly safe environment while waiting around the venue after the show and waiting for the bus. The venue itself is also a fairly nice place, and the acoustics were pretty good in the balconies. Now, onto the band itself. Transatlantic are a super group of sorts. They are made up of Neal Morse on vocals and keys, Roine Stolt on guitar and vocals, Pete Trewavas on bass and vocals, and Mike Portnoy on drums and vocals. For an extra bonus, they tour with Daniel Gildenlow of Pain of Salvation as a side man. Needless to say, things get mighty progressive mighty fast.

They played a 3 hour set, with a brief intermission in the middle. Their first set was one track clocking in at 70 minutes. Yes, you read that right. In total they played seven songs (six originals and Birthday by The Beatles since it was Portnoy's birthday). Now if you are at all interested in progressive rock, I implore you to give this band a listen. Their songs, despite being insanely long are catchy and memorable on top of being complex and challenging. They mostly stay on the softer more symphonic side of prog, but any band with Portnoy is going to dip into heavier territory every once and a while. They have excellent vocal harmonies, amazing leads, interwoven motifs, and heartfelt if at times corny lyrics.

Now given the caliber of musicians here, it goes without saying that the concert was played well. Even though the band did have a few mistakes during some of the tricky sections they were immediately overshadowed by all the overwhelming successes the band had. Watching them pull off a track like "Is it Really Happening?" or "Duel With the Devil" was one of those euphoric concert moments that's going to stick with me for a long time to come.

Now, after the show I decided to stick around and see if I could meet the members of the band. I've done things like this a few times, although I've become far less interested in doing it as time has gone by. After a less than positive experiencing with a musician I came to realize that I was treating many performers as sub human. I viewed them as a means to autographs and pictures instead of normal people. This is obviously not a good thing to do, and because of this realization I've become much more attracted to the idea of giving people their space.

However, this was a different situation. Pain of Salvation are pretty much my favorite band in the world and because they rarely make it to America I wasn't going to pass up the oppurtunity to meet the greatest rock vocalist ever. While waiting I socialized with other prog nerds, one my age (who goes to Columbia as well, what a surprise!) most older, and one who came all the way from BRAZIL to see this show (and was heading to NYC to catch the band there too). Eventually I ran into Mr. Neal Morse a musician that I have many mixed feelings. You see, Mr. Morse is a born again Christian, and his beliefs make a pretty big impact on his solo work. I think the guy is an incredible composer, but sometimes his lyrics can be a bit overbearing. However he was a total sweetheart and when he used "god bless you" as a salutation I was able to accept it with good grace. The phrase clearly means a lot to him, and even though I'm not religious, I accept the sentiment whole heartedly.

And then the moment of truth. I came face to face with a tall bearded Swede whose music I have listened to front and back. To put it simply, meeting Daniel Gildenlow was one of the most gratifying moments of my life and easily the highlight of the year so far. He cracked jokes about his politcal estrangement with America and extreme fandom. He listened patiently as I extolled the virtues of his band and signed my copy of "The Perfect Element". As much as I loved the guy before, I think I love him more now.

In case you're wondering, here are my all time musical heroes. My elite four so to speak(In ascending order):

4. Mike Patton

3. Trent Reznor

2. Daniel Gildenlow

1. Nobuo Uematsu

I've now seen 3 out of 4 of these people live, and have met one of them. I've heard that Mike Patton's not a big fan of meeting fans, as well as mixed stories about Reznor. I'm sure that Nobuo and I would get along fine if we spoke the same language.

-Ian.

Dead Again

2010-04-15T20:23:00.000-07:00

As a singer in a metal band from Brooklyn I feel like I have to say some words in remembrance of the recently deceased Pete Steele of Type O Negative. Now I can't say I ever really got into Type O Negative. It's not that I dislike their music, they're just one of the ten million bands out there that I haven't had time to really dig into. That said, I've always had an immense respect for them for being both one of the dreariest bands out there while still retaining a sense of humor about themselves and their music. That takes a lot of balls.

I never got to see Type O live, but I did attend one of their concerts. I was mainly going for Celtic Frost (who were AMAZING) but I thought that I would stick around for Type O since I know some people who are truly in love with the band and I thought I would see how they fared live. Before they went on stage the Chicken Dance played over the PA for 45 minutes at least. Every once and a while the lights would dim, the music would stop and the crowd would go nuts, only to have the lights come back up and the chicken dance resume it's maddening pace. It was a Thursday night and I was a junior in high school, so I eventually called it quits and went home (with a Celtic Frost t-shirt I might add). I heard later from a security guard at the Knitting Factory that when the band finally did come on stage Pete was visibly tired and announced that he was sick half way through the set.

I know that this isn't really much of a tribute. I'm not really the right person to be doing this, so if anyone reading this wants to do the guy right, please do so and let me know.

RIP Pete Steele

-Ian.

Over thinking it.

2010-04-04T22:50:00.000-07:00

I mentioned once before on this blog that I have some very far reaching plans for Random Child's music. Currently I have the basic concepts for our 3rd and 4th albums mapped out with a few vague ideas about albums five and six. While I think that the ideas I have for these albums very interesting I sometimes worry if I'm thinking too far ahead for my own good. What happens if I happen to change my mind by the time I actually start writing music for those albums?

Luckily for me, two of my favorite artists have set somewhat of a precedent for this type of planning. When Celtic Frost were first signed they gave their record label a layout of their first three releases including music direction, artwork, and lyrical concepts. To date those three albums stand as some of the strongest and most innovative metal albums of all time. It's also common knowledge that the following Celtic Frost releases were somewhat of a let down (understatement) which one could attribute to the lack of planning before hand (This does not include their absolutely incredible comeback album). Similarly, Daniel Gildenlow of Pain of Salvation has stated in an interview that he keeps a mental compartment full of ideas for albums that he can draw on at anytime. Surely attempting albums with scopes the size of Remedy Lane or BE would be impossible without planning ahead of time.

On the other hand Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater is very vocal about how limited he felt while having to continue the 12 step saga for nearly a decade. This especially makes me worried about my planned Dark Tower saga. However I would be willing to release those songs separately on EPs or in groups rather than one at a time.

So, do you think that I'm over thinking things? Or should I be working on album number 8 by now?

-Ian.

Heavy Mithril

2010-03-11T22:33:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't noticed, I'm a huge nerd. So are the rest of the band (except maybe Jonathan, I don't really know him well enough to tell). Eli, Jack, and I all play Magic: The Gathering, read comic books, watch Star Trek, and play tons of video games. I've gotten into heated discussions about Final Fantasy, have written one full song about The Dark Tower, and have toyed with the idea of starting a band that covers video game tunes. I'm also in the process of watching Neon Genesis in my spare time, what little of it I have.

So yeah, I was never a "cool" kid by any stretch of the imagination. I'm not nearly as socially inept or awkward as some of my fellow nerds, but I can't deny being one. This puts me a bit at odds with the increasing amount of "cool" people in metal. Ever since the metalcore movement and the whole "New Wave of American Metal" broke into the mainstream, the metal scene has been over run by tough guy jocks and trend hopping image centric losers who wouldn't know metal if it was shoved forcibly up their ass. Also, there's been an infestation of hipsters lately due to bands that I really like being rated highly by pitchfork.

Thing is, Heavy Metal would not be anywhere close to what it is now without nerds. Think about two of the most commercially successful and influential metal bands out there: Iron Maiden and Metallica. Iron Maiden have written songs about Dune, ancient history, Orson Scott Card, and their upcoming album is called "The Final Frontier". Metallica were heavily inspired by the work of HP Lovecraft, and were known to play Dungeons and Dragons while on tour. Obviously some genres are more nerd centric than others. You don't find concept albums about the Simarillion being made by brutal death metal bands, but there are still plenty of nerds across the subgenre spectrum. Trey Azagthoth apparently spends a great deal of his time playing Quake. Hell there are a good deal of death metal bands out there that are addressing topics such as theoretical physics in their lyrics.

What I'm trying to say here is that this super macho hardass thing that's so ingrained into the current metal idiom is dumb. We built this house on D&D, so if that's too lame to you, fuck off and take your god damn breakdowns with you. Same goes for you "too cool for school" hipsters out there. I know that you're all just losers in disguise, so either man up and be proud of your nerdiness or go back to listening to Fleet Foxes.

P.S. I'm aware of the irony in that last paragraph.

-Ian.

LYRICS. ARE. DONE.

2010-03-02T21:56:00.000-08:00

OH HELL YES.

After almost two years I have finished writing lyrics for "Isolation". What started as a one off song written in Jack Greenleaf's bedroom in Brooklyn, New York in one of his left over notebooks has just been finished on my laptop in my dorm room in Chicago, Illanois. 1,792 words. Seven and a half pages. Seven songs. By comparison, the lyrics to "Treatment" are three pages in six songs and only 814 words. Of course the average length of the songs on "Isolation" is two minutes longer than those on "Treatment", but it's still a pretty big jump. Hopefully you won't think that I'm sacrificing quality for quantity. I sure don't think I am. I'm MEGA proud of these lyrics. I think that I've really pushed myself into a whole bunch of new areas. A great deal of thanks has to go to Henry Crawford, a great lyricist himself, who helped open a lot of doors that I wouldn't have noticed before.

Before I go off to celebrate, I'll leave you with some words from my main man; Joseph Haydn:

“I was cut off from the world, with no one to mislead or harass me, so I was forced to become original.”

On Fan Fiction and Kanye West

2010-02-20T21:52:00.000-08:00

I spent this Saturday night browsing tvtropes.org, which is a fairly typical way for me to send my time, when I stumbled upon their section on fan fiction. For those unaware, fan fiction is pretty much what you think it would be. Fans of something (it could be anything, ranging from TV shows to books to celebrities to god knows what else) decide to write their own story using characters, settings, plot points, and other elements of the original. Because of the Internet, just about anyone can write a fan fiction and it will most likely be read by some one else. Because of this, there's a lot of really shitty writing out there. In fact, to most people the two terms are probably synonymous. I flirted with fan fiction writing during middle school (a Final Fantasy multiverse one if you must know) and I can assure you that it was unbelievably bad by any standards of writing, although I at least had correct punctuation. Various authors have different responses to this phenomena, some encouraging it, and others deriding it as unoriginal and offensive to their original artwork.

Now I'd like to draw a parallel to my own field of work. The musical equivalent to fan fiction is sampling, remixing, and mashups. Think about it. Some one takes a piece of music that they are presumably interested in to a certain degree, uses musical "characters" from the original piece to create their own story. In that sense, you can kind of look at Kanye West as the single most acclaimed fan fiction author of all time while Girl Talk has made a living off of crossover fan fiction.

Much like fan fiction sampling has created a variety of responses from the musical world. Many musicians see it as being unoriginal and inherently inferior to creating one's own original ideas. This is somewhat of a slippery slope given that if you really get down to it there are no original ideas since there are only 12 notes out there (in western music anyway). This view also completely ignores all of the incredible music made with sampling technology. The difference between good sampling and bad sampling is that good sampling uses the sampled elements as building blocks while bad sampling uses samples as a crutch. Good sampling takes music that a listener is familiar with and puts it in a new light, exposes sides of the music that where previously hidden or obscured. For example, some one might not notice how creepy "Paparazzi" by Lady Gaga is until they hear her singing over "Bleed" by Meshuggah. Other musicians avidly encourage this practice, especially remixing, which is why the remix album exists as a trend in the first place.

The one major difference is that artists have made career's out of sampling, remixing, and mashing, while fan fiction writers do not. Perhaps this is because of the quality, but I don't think that's necessarily true. There's probably a lot of really interesting and well written stories out there that happen to be fan fiction, but they won't be published anytime soon, mostly because of copy right laws, but also because of the stigma against the genre.

Just thought I'd share my thoughts on the subject. Sorry for the rambling.

-Ian.

Interviews!

2010-02-12T12:51:00.000-08:00

Hey there, a third interview has just surfaced, so I thought I would share it with you.

Here's the most recent. It's on a Swedish blog called "rock hospital" which is pretty fitting considering our album is called "Treatment".

Here's an earlier interview that I did right after "Treatment" was released. It's with the infamous King Cripple who also gave us a very fair and balanced review.

And here is our first interview, with our good friend Richard Gin. At this point we had finished the album, but it hadn't been released yet. Eli and Jack join me, and Tola Brennan makes a guest appearance somewhere in there.

Enjoy the reading. If you'd like to interview me, or any of the other members of the band, please shoot me an email at randomchildnyc@gmail.com

-Ian.

Source Material

2010-02-07T19:14:00.001-08:00

I thought it would be a good idea to show you, the reader, some of the sources of inspiration "Isolation". This isn't a comprehensive list, as I'm sure there are things that have influenced my songwriting process subconsciously or have been forgotten over the course of the writing process. If I remember anything I'll add it at a later date.

Shutting Themselves In by Maggie Jones

Oldboy by Park Chan-wook

Koyaanisquatsi by Godfrey Reggio

The Wikipedia article on Event Horizons

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger by Stephen King

No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre

Inside by Pain of Salvation

I Am The Black Wizards by Emperor

Cold by The Cure

The Score to "A Fistful of Dollars" by Ennio Morricone

To The Field by Steve Von Till

Pruit Igoe by Philip Glass

The Score to "Avatar: The Last Airbender" by The Track Team

A Change of Seasons by Dream Theater

Octavarium by Dream Theater (can't find a good link for it since it's a LONG ASS SONG)

Of course all of this might mean nothing to you since you haven't heard the album yet. However I think it'll provide a bit more insight by the time the album is released. Enjoy!

-Ian.

A milestone reached

2010-01-30T20:46:00.000-08:00

As of today at about two in the morning, the writing for "Isolation" is finished. God damn does it feel good to type that. The writing process for this record began in Spring 2008 when Jack and I wrote Hikikomori, a song originally intended for "Treatment". Two more of the songs were written during my first semester at college. Over spring break we wrote our first song for the record as a full band, although I think that Eli had begun working on the main riff in January 2009. Over the summer we wrote two more songs, and at this stage we had a very good idea of what the album should sound like, however there was one single piece missing. Very early on in the writing process I knew that I wanted to write a very long song, one that would top our previous epic, Plague in length, scope, and quality. Discarding modesty for a second, I basically wanted to write our equivalent of "A Change of Seasons" or "2112".

I began work on the song in the spring of 2009 while going through a major Philip Glass phase (blame the trailer for Watchmen and Koyaanisquatsi). This segment of the song ended up being the middle of the song and is probably the most overtly "technical" piece of music Random Child has at the moment. For a long time after this initial progress I was stumped, mostly due to having next to no experience in writing songs this long. I didn't know where to take the piece and I had next to no idea how to start it. My inspiration actually came from the classes I was taking at the time. As I started to apply some of the more interesting lessons learned to my own song writing I began to see a great structure to the piece emerging.

By thanksgiving of 2009 I established the six subsections of the larger piece and began to write towards the goal of making each of these subsections strong on their own as well as important to each other. I knew the basic feel and style that I wanted each subsection to be in, as well as exact keys for a few of them. The process of getting from one to the other was surprising and inspiring for me, and watching all the various pieces fall into place last night was the greatest relief I've ever felt as a songwriter. I'm incredibly proud of the song, which by the way is the title track of the record if you were unaware, and I can't wait to start recording it with the rest of the band.

Of course the major problem is that now I have to write lyrics for the damn thing, which is going to take a veeeerrryyyy long time.

-Ian.

Defenders of the Faith

2010-01-26T22:03:00.000-08:00

So I recently read an article that the magazine "Metal Hammer" is attempting to get "Heavy Metal" recognized as a religion in the UK census. If you are a metalhead in the UK and you are reading this, please, DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN. I understand the sentiment behind this movement, but this action is not helping. I assume that this movement is attempting to show that there is still a strong and devoted fan base for the genre, but if you really want to show support for heavy metal a more practical course of actions would be, you know, actually supporting the music. You want people to recognize your devotion to a genre of music? Go out and buy albums and merchandise, go to local shows, but don't pull stupid publicity stunts like this. I'll admit that this sort of thing isn't very surprising coming from the metal fan base, but imagine for a second what it would be like if any other genre of music tried something like this. Would you ever take some one with "jazz" or "hardcore punk" as their religion seriously? No? Then why expect any one to take you seriously?

This kind of action isn't good for anyone. The "thinking man's metal" crowd will view this as just the sort of blind devotion that they want to get rid of, and the traditionalist metalheads will view it as the sort of gimmicky attention grabbing that inevitably brings poseurs and hipsters into the metal fold. Imagine how many ironic hipsters will mark themselves as followers of heavy metal in the census for laughs? See, no one's happy.

As I said before, you want to support metal, do so by all means, but please remember that we're talking about vibrations of air. Nothing more, nothing less.

-Ian.

Excuses and other things

2010-01-20T23:22:00.000-08:00

So I feel like I need to give a bit of an explanation as to why I don't use this blog nearly as much as most "bloggers" do. I've mentioned before that not much happens in the Random Child camp, and the few events that do occur are usually very small and we tend to reach landmarks through a series of small boring steps rather than large eye catching leaps. However this is really only part of the equation. Since I've been labelled as a blogger in a review of Treatment, I think it's a good idea to explain where I'm coming from.

First off, I don't have time in my life to blog constantly. It's a matter of priorities. When I'm busy doing things I don't want to stop doing things to write about doing things. If I'm taking a break from doing things, I don't want to get off my lazy ass and write about things that I've done. Part of this comes from who I am in comparison to most bloggers. I think most bloggers have a desire to explain their lives or ideas to the rest of the world on a day by day basis. I'm not like that. I like to talk about myself, but not to the internet. I like to be very careful when it comes to letting people know about what's going on in my life. When ever I come up with an interesting idea or whenever something of great import happens in my life I have a select number of people that I will call nonstop and talk ears off when they pick up, but outside of that group I'd rather keep my mouth shut.

Another side of things is that a lot of the Random Child related news would be some what of a buzz kill. For example, if I explained the concept behind our fourth album now (yes I do think that far ahead) it wouldn't be anywhere near as cool as learning about it when you actually hear the album. I don't want to give away too much because then there's no anticipation. At the same time, I hate it when my favorite bands are too secretive about their recording process or their plans. It's a tough balance to find.

Finally I don't know who reads this and subsequnetially I don't know who I'm going to piss off. That kind of speaks for itself.

Anywho, the recording process for Isolation is going well. Jack is a fucking Logic genuis and every note of music we record reminds me of how awesome this album is. Seriously. Prepare to be blown away.

-Ian. Although if you haven't figured out that I'm the only guy to use this by now...

2009 in review

2009-12-27T13:39:00.000-08:00

Well, it's the end of yet another year and so I will summarize the happenings of the band in the last 12 months.

First off, we released our debut album, "Treatment" for free in August and to date it's been downloaded 342 times. We've had two different websites review the album both giving it a solid score of 3 out of 5. We've done two interviews promoting the release, with another one coming soon. We haven't played any shows promoting the album yet, but it's in the works.

Speaking of things in the works, we wrote the majority of the material that will appear on our second album "Isolation" this year. We also began recording although we are still very much in the early stages of the process.

We also had our first major line up change in a long time when Joey, our former guitarist, left and was replaced by Max Coburn. Eli then switched to guitar to allow Max to play bass. So far things have been great with Max, and Joey has been hard at work making beats and working on his production skills

Jack has also been working hard on material for Bad Teeth, Jonathan has been recording with Fiasco, and I've been writing and recording with Eternity Engine and Aleister's White Stains in Chicago. Max has released 3 or 4 different solo Eps this year, and I think he'll be coming out with another one pretty soon.

All in all, 2009 has been a busy year and 2010 is looking to be an even busier one.

-Ian.

Top 30 albums of 2009

2009-12-06T23:13:00.001-08:00

This is somewhat of a tradition of mine, so I thought I would post the list here on the blog. For fairness 'Treatment' is not on the list. I also didn't do any live albums, demos, EPs, or cover albums.

Here we go.

30. Gambling on the Richter scale by Kowloon Walled City

29. Misanthrope(s) by Celeste

28. What We All Come To Need by Pelican

27. Part the Second by maudlin of the Well

26. Animals as Leaders by Animals as Leaders

25. The Devil you know by Heaven and Hell

24. Shrinebuilder by Shrinebuilder

23. Endgame by Megadeth

22. Those Whom the Gods Detest by Nile

21. Process of a New Decline by Gorod

20. Addicted by Devin Townsend

19. Hymns of Blood and Thunder by The Gates of Slumber

18. Wavering Radiant by Isis

17. Blue Record by Baroness

16. Dimensional Bleedthrough by Krallice

15. The Incident by Porcupine Tree

14. Geneva by Russian Circles

13. Evangelion by Behemoth

12. Ki by Devin Townsend

11. Blood Oath by Suffocation

10. New Moon by Swallow the Sun

9. Octahedron by The Mars Volta

8. The Whirlwind by Transatlantic

7. Cosmogenesis by Obscura

6. Hymn to the Immortal Wind by Mono

5. The Great Misdirect by Between the Buried and Me

4. Crack the Skye by Mastodon

3. Black Clouds & Silver Linings by Dream Theater

2. Spoils of Failure by Buried Inside

1. Axe to Fall by Converge

-Ian.

Bad gigs.

2009-12-02T15:36:00.000-08:00

I have never seen a truly horrible concert. I've seen some lame bands live, but all of them were fairly solid and knew what they were doing, even if what they were doing sucked. I've seen bands that I love play less than spectacular sets on an off night. Pelican, the example I give the most have an excuse because their pedals were fucking up and they had to play after fucking Mono, which would give the worst nerves imaginable. The closest I've seen were Children of Bodom, who were sloppy and depended on their light show to win the crowd over, and Suicide Silence, whose sampler went on the fritz sending out at least ten different "Family Guy" quotes in unison while their bassist threw a hissy fit, which combined was far funnier than any episode of "Family Guy" and more entertaining than any of their music. For the record I'm not counting local shows, as I have seen some absolutely horrible Mighty Handful gigs.

To clarify, what I'm talking about here are shows were the band disintegrates on stage, where train wrecks occur in nearly every song, and the band has to call it quits four songs into the set and leave the stage an absolute mess of broken equipment and shattered egos. A good example of this kind of gig was documented on Zao's live dvd which had clips of a show that they cancelled half way through and announced their breakup on stage.

Most people would probably that I was lucky for not bearing witness to this type of show, but honestly I have a morbid curiosity about shows like this. I want to have that kind of story to tell after exiting a venue. So, have any of you seen a show like this? I would love to hear what it's like.

-Ian.

Announcing: Isolation Track List

2009-11-27T23:07:00.000-08:00

So today Jack and I got together to work on more of the title track of Isolation. It's funny how something that once seemed so overwhelming and intimidating now seems so manageable. The material we wrote reminds me a lot of Steve Von Till's (of Neurosis) solo work, which I would highly recommend to any fans of dark, haunting acoustic music. Since we've made such substantial progress on the song, I thought I would announce to the world the titles and running order of the songs on Isolation.

1.Hikikomori

2.Shadow Boxing

3.Life in a Bigger Prison

4.Heaven Froze Solid

5.A Thirsty Country

6.Misanthrope

7.Isolation

i. This Door Stays Closed

ii. The Event Horizon

iii. Life Out of Order

iv. The Cold Blue Light

v. The Thaw

vi. Bridge the Gap

So there you have it folks. Now I know that I initially said there were going to be eight tracks on the album, but we decided that we had written enough material and that we should focus on making the songs we have amazing instead of spreading ourselves too thin. If you're a more obsessive Random Child fan you'll probably remember that Hikikomori was originally going to be a song on Treatment. Trust me, it makes way more sense in this context and won't feel like a b-side at all.

Tell your friends.

-Ian.

Burnt out

2009-11-14T19:32:00.000-08:00

This last week has been a whirlwind of homework, death metal, classes, and band practices, with a topping of a concert that ended at 2 in the morning (I realize that this metaphor is extremely mixed, sorry). In case you're wondering, the concert was a Flashbulb show, and it was awesome. Today was especially rough. On top of being sleep deprived (aforementioned concert), I had to go to band practice with a Thrash metal band that I do work for. It should be known that I am not Dave Lombardo, and thus I get extremely tired after playing at 170 bpm+ for extended periods of time. And on top of this I had a drum lesson that involved a long train ride both ways.

So needless to say, I'm really beat. I believe Frank Zappa said that "volume is exhausting" and I'd be inclined to agree. This is what has always confused me about people who claim to only listen to metal, or extreme metal in particular. If I tried to do that, my brain would probably short out after a week or two. Sometimes, you just need to put on some Sigur Ros, and chill the fuck out.

Because of this, I try to make an effort to put softer and less abrasive moments in my own music, both for myself and for the listener. Of course some songs need to just be cranked to 11 the whole way through, but dynamics are an important element to music and I try to keep that in mind while writing. Of course the overwhelming majority of Random Child songs are for the most part on the heavier side of things. Maybe we'll do an acoustic/softer album in the future to balance things out a bit.

-I

General Update

2009-11-02T20:59:00.000-08:00

As per usual during the school year, not too much is happening in Random Land at the moment. Because I have yet to be absorbed into twitter I haven't taken the time to post many of the smaller events that have occurred in the last few months.

First off, Eli has started recording guitar for "Isolation". I've heard one full track so far and it sounds really really really good. So good that I had to demo some vocals over them. That went fairly well too.

I'm still plugging away at the title track. Whenever I hit a creative dead end I've turned to my friend Andrew Napier for help, and so far the guy has delivered excellent music theory advice. I might even have to give the some song credit, which is kind of lame because then I might have to pay him too. Andrew and I also work together in a Prog Metal band that I've mentioned here once before called Eternity Engine. We've been practicing 3 days a week for a while now and we've gotten pretty damn good if I do say so myself. We have about 50 minutes of material (in six songs, go figure), and we'll probably start working on making a record/playing live sometime soon.

Jack's been working hard at recording many of the bands and solo acts back in NYC. On top of this, he's been working pretty hard with Bad Teeth (who are very good from what I've heard). I'm not sure what Jon and Max have been up to, but I'd imagine that they've both been writing more tunes than you can shake at stick at.

Jack finally convinced me to start watching Lost. I'd been meaning to do this for about 4 years, so it was nice to finally get started. Needless to say, I'm hooked although not to the degree that the rest of the world is. Still, I wouldn't be too surprised if a reference to the show popped up sometime soon in the world of Random Child.

-Ian

(P.S. I was talking to this guy who said that Treatment changed his life. How exactly am I supposed to respond to that?)

Seasonal Affective Metal

2009-09-22T13:42:00.000-07:00

Recently the weather in Chicago has become very overcast. The sky is pale grey and it's rare that I see the sun. It hasn't actually rained much, but it feels like it could at any second. The brutal cold of winter hasn't set in yet, but god damn does it look bleak outside. Of course I'm not complaining. As autumn descends upon us, my taste in music makes a shift towards the melancholy and darker strains of metal. Bands like Opeth, Katatonia, Swallow the Sun, and just about every black metal band worth listening to are nearly impossible for me to listen to during the summer, but from here on out they will be in constant rotation. It shouldn't surprise anyone that most of these bands are Scandinavian. This also changes the music that I write, and there will be a good deal of evidence of that on "Isolation". It'll be pretty easy to tell which songs were written during the autumn and winter, and which were written during the spring and summer.

Hope you enjoy the dreariness!

-I

Drug Free Psychedelics

2009-09-11T23:39:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a The Mars Volta concert. Needless to say, they completely smoke live, especially Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and Thomas Pridgen (the guitarist and drummer respectively) who both took many an extended solo and were locked in with each other for the entire night. While I could continue to sing this band's praises, tonight I want to focus on my fellow fans of the band.

More people approached me attempting to buy and sell drugs at this concert than any other I've been to in my entire life. I don't really have a problem with this, even though I am straight edge. However it is kind strange when you are the only sober person at a performance of a band so clearly influenced by consciousness altering substances. While I don't have any real interest in experimenting with drugs, I do some times wonder if I'm missing out when it comes to experiencing music written with drug users in mind.

-I

Back to school

2009-09-08T19:49:00.000-07:00

Well here we are at the front end of yet another school year. Jonathan and Max are both heading into their first year of college and Eli and I are both returning for seconds. Jack, always the badass, is taking a year off to work. I can't speak for the others, but I'm personally both excited and stressed out about the school year. On the one hand I really like my music classes and Chicago. On the other hand, I have a ton of work to do.

More than anything however I'm stressed out over one of the songs "Isolation" that isn't finished yet. Oddly enough, there's actually a fair amount of material that's going to be on this album that we have yet to write. This song is going to be the bulk of that unwritten material. You see, for as long as we've been working on this record I've wanted to try my hand at a massive song of epic proportions. This has a lot to do with my fandom/obsession with Dream Theater, but it's also a matter of curiosity. I've never written a side long epic before, and I want to give it a shot and see what it's like. So far the process has been very agonizing. Instead of just going into a studio or Eli's basement and jamming the song out I've made a conceptual map for the song and having been writing parts based on that outline. It's a new process, and it's pretty hard at the moment.

By the way, I've also started compiling a playlist of tracks that were a big inspiration on both this album and "Treatment". Not sure what I'm going to do with them. I'll probably post the list here at some point.

-I

Announcing: Isolation

2009-08-27T22:48:00.000-07:00

Only a few weeks after the release of our first album, and we're already started on the next one. Tonight, Jack, Eli and I finished the drum layout for a song that will be appearing on our second album. What this means is that we have a midi drum track for the song, which contains all of the correct tempo and time changes that will be on the record. This will be the foundation that the rest of us will record from in our separate locations over the remainder of the year. Later when we've finished basic tracking, I will record live drums in a studio for the songs. After that we'll probably brush up the tracks here and there and mix it, master it etc. It might not sound like we did all that much today, but it's really exciting for us.

This is probably the best time to make the official announcement that our second album will be called Isolation. It will have eight tracks, most hovering around six minutes in length, with some extending past it, and some falling a good deal shorter. It's a thematic album about isolation, loneliness, and solidarity. It's going to be heavier, proggier, darker, and a whole lot more focused than Treatment was, and that's saying something because I'm really proud of Treatment. I haven't figured out exactly what I want for the artwork, but expect a lot of blue. As always, I'll keep you posted as things develop.

-Ian.

Treatment: available for free.

2009-08-09T09:54:00.000-07:00

Congrats everyone, you are now able to download Treatment for free. If you want to give it a listen before you download, you can hear the entire album on our myspace. If you like what you here, you can download the album as a zip file on this blog or on our myspace (or on facebook if you happen to be friends with me.) We will be selling some copies of the album at our shows and in person, but we will be using a tip jar system. In other words, the album is free, but you are able (and encouraged) to donate money to the bands cause.

I've spent a very long time trying to get this band and this album together. It's strange to think that we first entered the studio for Treatment a year ago. Originally my intention was to release the way that many successful bands did, in physical format with full artwork and all of that professional snazziness. What I came to realize as we got closer to completion is that no matter how many copies we made and sold, we would never make money off of this album. And when it comes down to it, it is far more important that people hear this album.

So download it, send it to your friends, post it on torrents, argue about it on forums, send us fan mail/hate mail/apathetic mail, etc. As long as people hear this album, I'm going to be happy.

-I

Download 'Treatment"

Hard at work

2009-08-06T23:34:00.000-07:00

We haven't updated this blog in a while, not because we haven't been doing anything but because we're too damn busy. Eli, Jack, and I all have jobs, and Max and Jon are busy getting the new Banzai album out. Jon's also been recording with Fiasco, and Jack's been working on a new project with Henry Crawford. I just recently got back from a trip to Hopkinton MA where I was working with Dan Muller of In Delirium (whose album you can and should download for free) on a prog metal side project.

Because of course we still some how find time to be busy with Random Child related work. Just a few hours ago I received the artwork for Treatment which was done by Daniel DaLafe. It was an honor working with him and I'm super proud of the work he did. He'll also be doing the layout for our myspace page soon. On top of that we've been working on booking a show so that we can release this album in style. This of course also means that we're busting our asses over the material from Treatment as well as one of the new songs for the live show.

Things are pretty crazy now, but trust me, it will be worth it in the long run.

-I

Stasis.

2009-07-14T22:22:00.000-07:00

So I just uploaded a song from "Treatment" called Stasis. I thought it would be fun to take a bit of a closer look at the song for this blog.

Stasis was the third song we wrote for "Treatment" after Subjects and Pilgrimage. One day, Eli gave me a call about a new riff he wrote, which he compared to 'Greet Death' by Explosions in the Sky. Obviously comparing a riff to a song as incredible as 'Greet Death' got me really excited to work on the song. Eli and I pretty much wrote the whole song ourselves in a single sitting. The opening riff was either going to be in three or four, we decided that the 4/4 version gave a bit more a push to the song rhythmically. We still hint at the 6/8 feel in the build up to the solo section, using a 3-3-2 rhythm pattern before jumping into a more straight ahead rock groove.

Eli wrote the chords leading to the solo section, and then the solo section itself was jammed out very quickly between the two of us. The guitar solo has the honor of being the only real solo on the record, something that so far hasn't changed really on the new material. The heavier section with harsh vocals was built from the drums up. Same with the weirder 6/8 section. I really wanted to make a 6/8 drum part that didn't feel like a waltz and a bit more drive to it without falling into certain metal cliches. The guitar harmonies in that part we actually written in the studio when I thought that the section didn't sound as full as the rest of the song.

Filling out the sound was actually a big problem for this tune in the studio. Because most of the song only has one dominant guitar part, we had to use an organ setting on keyboards to give the whole thing more low end and presence. Ultimately this actually strengthens the Deep Purple-esque mood of the song once it kicks into high gear, and we've continued to use this for the live version of the song.

Lyrically I was inspired by the word Stasis which I had found in an earlier poem that I wrote. The original piece was utter crap, but the word stood out to me and I thought it would be a good spring board for a better piece. The lyrics ended up being about shell shock and dealing with a life altering amount of trauma. It's about those moments when everything just seems to freeze in the wake of some unimaginable event. Being from NYC the most obvious example of such an event would be 9-11 and that's totally applicable to the songs lyrics.

Vocally this was a really tough one for me to get down. The verses are a very tricky chord progression to sing over, and switching to the chorus took a lot of getting used to. Overall my vocals get better as the song goes along as I get into more comfortable territory such as the harsh vocals in the middle or the bluesy howls at the end. My favorite section vocally though has to be the metal shriek right as the guitar solo kicks in. While I'm definitely not the best greatest at this style (see: Rob Halford) it's a whole lot of fun to do.

-[I]

Good News Everyone!

2009-07-03T19:14:00.000-07:00

We have resolved our line up problems! Eli, who was officially our bassist before, has become the guitarist of the band. This makes a great deal of sense since he played a great deal of the guitar on the "Treatment" and his contributions to the newer material has been primarily on guitar.

More importantly however, we have a new member to add to the Random Child line up. Will everyone please give a warm round of applause to Mister Max Coburn! You might know Max from the incredible Banzai or from his solo project, Maxo. Max has always been my favorite bassist in the local scene, and is a hilarious and awesome person to boot, so I can't wait to start playing some of the Treatment material with this guy on board, let alone the new stuff.

-[I]

Line up Change

2009-06-30T17:38:00.000-07:00

Bad news time people. The last original member of the band, besides myself, has quit. As of today Joey Hurtado is no longer the guitarist of Random Child. He has decided that the constant commute from Staten Island to Brooklyn have made it impossible to stay in the band from a financial point of view, which given our current economic climate is a reasonable conclusion to make. There is absolutely no bad blood between the band and Joey. Joey has also become increasingly interested and skilled in production and beat making, so I wouldn't be too surprised if you heard a good deal more coming from him soon. Obviously we wish him well in his endeavors and hope that you all do the same.

Now, on to the matter of replacements. Eli, Jack, and I were bouncing around a lot of ideas today and haven't really gotten to anything to conclusive. There are a lot of options on the table, and some of them would be very exciting indeed. We still plan to play a concert by the end of the summer, and we're clearly going to have to find some one willing and able to play either bass or guitar (preferably both) for said concert. However, when it comes to a permanent replacement things are very much up in the air. Updates will come as we get them.

-[I]

Practice Log/Best Band Ever

2009-06-25T15:48:00.000-07:00

So today Eli, Jack and I finished up A Thirsty Country, the first Dark Tower song. It's an epic journey to be sure, I'd estimate it's length to be about 7 minutes or so. It's very economic in terms of parts and it has a extremely well defined atmosphere. As I said before, think Iron Maiden scoring a Spaghetti Western and you're on the right track.

Speaking of Iron Maiden, Eli and I watched Flight 666 today. Not only was it awesome to see live footage from the greatest live band on earth (this is a fact, do not try to argue with it) including part of Rime of the Ancient Mariner from their show in New Jersey which I was lucky enough to witness in person, but it was also cool to get a glimpse of how absolutely nutty some Maiden fans are. South America especially goes completely crazy for the band, and put any crowd I've ever been a part of to shame.

- [I]

Today's Practice.

2009-06-07T01:15:00.000-07:00

Today's practice was attended by Ian and myself. Jack was sick, Joey was in Staten Island and John... who knows really...

Anyway, it went well. I agree with Ian. This new song is bitchin'!

So that means we are well on our way to completing our second album's worth of material. One song totally finished, and about five more that are in the works, leaving... two left to write I believe? (Ian can correct me on those figures.)

On an unrelated note,

I caught the last half our of Iron Maiden: Flight 666 tonight on VH1. It was AWESOME. I can't wait to watch the program in its entirety. I recommend it to all metal fans! (I would kill to see Maiden live...)

On another unrelated note,

WHY THE FUCK AM I AWAKE AT 4:18 A.M.????

Anyone is welcome to venture a guess as to the answer to that question...

- Random Child [E]

Happy Slayer Day!

2009-06-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

It's the third annual International Day of Slayer so if you haven't listened to Slayer, a cover of Slayer or a band that shared members with Slayer (such as Megadeth or Fantomas) then you deserve a slap on the wrist. Seriously people, Slayer may not be the best metal band in the world, but they're one of the most fun to listen to.

In other news, Eli and I just finished working on a song that is far and away our heaviest yet. It's thrashy as hell and has a really doomy middle section. So far it's about five minutes, but I have some ideas that will probably push it into 6 or 7 minutes. It was inspired by one of the first riffs that we ever worked on back when the line up was completely different. We used to just play that one riff for minutes on end because we wanted to be atmospheric. I'm glad no one ever recorded us, because I'm sure the things we were doing would be nigh unlistenable.

-[I]

A Miracle!

2009-05-31T19:52:00.000-07:00

Today, for one song during practice, we actually had the entire band in the room. Astounding!

Beyond that we had a very productive day. Jonathan and Joey both learned and wrote parts for "Life in a Bigger Prison" and the rest of us ran through all of Treatment. If you had told me in November that we would be capable of playing the album live I wouldn't have believed you, and while we still aren't completely there, it's within the realm of possibility. We had a very long discussion about the future of the band. We are going to release Treatment soon, probably in a pressing of about fifty copies, but for those who don't get the physical, the album will be on the iTunes store. We're also going to be playing at least one show this summer, more on that when there is more to announce.

We also continued work on "Shadow Boxing" another new song, and have decided in the general theme and layout for the next album. Can't say anything yet, but it's going to be really cool.

General Update/Practice Log

2009-05-21T21:14:00.000-07:00

So despite my best laid plans, my first week back in NYC has been about as crazy as my last week in Chicago. That said I want to apologize for the lack of a "best band ever" this week, and last week too come to think of it. Not only have I been busy reconnecting with old friends, but it's very difficult to sing endless praise about a band that I'm not super into anymore (radiohead in this case).

Today Eli, Jack, and I had our first practice since Eli and I came home. We ran over "Life in a Bigger Prison" and started work on a new song. I want to go on record saying that I have not been this excited about a new song in a while. So far it sounds A LOT like Iron Maiden. Very classic metal, sorta like "To Tame a Land". The chorus is absolutely killer, and I can tell that this song is going to push what I'm capable of as a singer, and as a lyricist. Nothing definite yet, but this will probably end up being song one in my Dark Tower tribute songs.

-[I]

On being sick.

2009-05-13T14:44:00.000-07:00

It sucks. A lot.

I am currently battling a mix between a fever and some crazy strong allergies. It's common for me to get some serious sniffles at this time of year, but this is really the extreme. This morning I woke up unable to stand up straight without keeling over. The blood that rushed to my head caused me to lose the ability to concentrate or see. My stomach felt like it was about to explode into thousands of pieces. For a while I was pretty convinced that I was going to die. The irony of such a death is not lost on me considering that my last artistic statement would be an album called "Treatment" which would end with a song called "Plague". On a similar vein, I am really pissed that the whole "swine flu" thing has shown up right around the release of 'Treatment". Not good timing at all considering what my idea for our promo pics is (can't spoil that yet!).

The first time I was sick here in Chicago I realized exactly why people need families and homes and communities. Nothing makes you feel more horribly alone than being sick far away from home. I have no doubt that my current illness is a result of the massive amount of stress I've been under here, and I'm kind of thankful that it happened now instead of ruining my first week back home. Speaking of which, I can't wait to get back to work on new material with RC and get back onto my drum set.

-[I]

Not Busy Not Busy Not Busy

2009-05-10T22:09:00.001-07:00

This is my first post on Random Chlog. I am in my senior year of highschool, and things could not be better/full of bullshit. My finals this year were all projects, tomorrow at 9:15am I have to read a children's book that I wrote in spanish, out loud to a bunch of sixth graders. That is my final. This reading counts for 30% of my GRADE. Why wasn't school always this funny? I've realized that I've sort of graduated from writing about school. I think this is a good thing. It means I've pushed it out of my mind, I suppose.

I'll be honest. I feel awkward writing a blog. Not because of this one, I mean, if anything I'm most comfortable here. But I just have never had a blog, journal, diary. The only diary I had was a Harriet the Spy journal that I didn't write in, but carried around. It said "KEEP OUT" and I thought that was cool because I was just like Harriet the Spy, minus Rosie O'Donnel.

I just spent like three hours doing two things. First of all, I downloaded a Ciderized version of Oblivion. Yes I have already beaten it on my xbox, but I'm becoming an OCD collector of games for my mac that aren't supposed to be for my mac. These people do things called "cidering" which basically wraps Mac games with a PC wrapper. Since Macs have switched to the Intel based processing units, everything can play PC games. This also means that old games for the PPC processors have long since dissapeared. It's a beautiful thing though. I have GTA: SA, Vice City, Oblivion, Morrowind, KOTOR, Max Payne, Orange Box: HL2,HLE1/2,Portal etc, but I also have this game called Braid.

Braid is an amazing game, it's just like mario, except there's a plot. And you never die. If you mess up, you time travel. It seems simple, but I swear, some of the puzzles are the hardest things I've ever had to wrap my head around. There are some levels that only move through time while you move forward, and these same levels move backwards when you walk back. So if you have to run over to one end to flip a switch that opens a door on the otherside, you would flip it, and as you walk back, the door would close, because time is going backwards. So you like, have to time travel and jump and run forward.....okay honestly it's just the most ridiculous shit.

See, isn't it obvious I've never had a journal before? I have no focus.

I just finished a new solo song. I rap in it, but like, it's dead serious. Am I retarted?

-Jack

Busy Busy Busy

2009-05-10T18:55:00.000-07:00

It's the final week of the semester and my life seems to be moving at 100 mph. I've been extremely productive, and I've also been through two incredibly strange and eventful weekends in a row. Because of all of the stimulation my brain is currently in overdrive. Here are a few snap shots of my life and scattered ideas that i've been knocking around lately.

First off, I've been working on a paper about how video games affect the psychology of young males. The fact that I get to use Halo as a source in my bibliography is unsettling but also fills me with a bit of vindictive glee towards all of the boring research papers I had to write in high school. Looking at the games I grew up with in an analytical manner has been a very enlightening process and has forced me to develop an extreme hate for Princess Peach.

I'm nearly finished writing the lyrics for the song I wrote with Jack and Eli over spring break. They are heavily inspired by OldBoy, which is my favorite film of all time. The theme I'm working with on this tune is vengeance. So far they match up well with the demo that we recorded, but chances are things will have to change once I actually have to sing them. I tend to overestimate my lung capacity

A friend of mine, Kai Young, made a very poignant observation last night at a pizza place. By the way, Chicago pizza is freakin' ridiculous. It's way thicker and filling than NY pizza. That aside, Kai said something that really struck right to the heart of one of the biggest issues of my own life, and undoubtably the lives of many others. I paraphrase; "when you're a kid you keep hoping that one day you'll go off to live in a fantasy world, but when you grow up you realize that you never will. You'll never go to Middle-Earth, you'll never catch a Pikachu, you'll never save the world... That's why the world sucks." This reminded me a lot of Tyler Durden's speech in Fight Club modified for my generation. If I had to come up with a name for my generation I would call it the Escapism Generation. More on this some other time.

[I]

Best Band Ever Week 3

2009-05-07T16:28:00.000-07:00

Week 3: Dream Theater (426)

I am fanatically in love with this band. I spent over a hundred dollars to see this band two nights in a row, and skipped my high school prom to do so. I cut class to attend a meet and greet with their drummer Mike Portnoy. I pre-ordered the most deluxe edition of their upcoming 10th studio album, and plan to buy the premium ticket package for their upcoming US tour (with Pain of Salvation!). I have made great friendships with many great musicians over a mutual love of Dream Theater's music. My approach to writing music and, to a certain degree, listening to music has changed dramatically after becoming a Dream Theater fan.

Simply put, no other band on the planet can work their way through long complicated song structures the way Dream Theater can. While other bands tend to get lost in their own grandiose ambitions when they start breaking the 10 minute mark, Dream Theater never let a song drown itself in self indulgent ambient passages (looking at you, The Mars Volta) or long periods of repetition. Instead, the best DT epics follow a logical structure that leads the listener through even the most dense and complicated instrumental passages to a satisfying emotional high point, all the while keeping a firm grip on all of the themes introduced over the course of the song.

Of course I can't talk about DT and not mention the fact that every member of the band (including their singer James LaBrie at his prime, but not so much any more) completely shreds on their instrument. John Petrucci is nearly unmatched on guitar, John Myung is an inventive and melodic bass player with unreal amounts of stamina, and Mike Portnoy while not exactly subtle has become the most influential drummer in the progressive metal scene with his unique style. But not even these instrumental monsters can match the inhuman prowess of keyboardist Jordan Rudess who can make better music on his iPhone than you will in your entire life.

The above is a video of Dream Theater playing an extremely energetic version of their classic mind blowing instrumental tune "Dance of Eternity". Can't count through it? Neither can I. And that's why Dream Theater are the best band ever.

-[I]

Best Band Ever Week 2

2009-04-30T16:30:00.000-07:00

Week 2: Pain of Salvation (500 plays)

Since this is a band that is still fairly unknown in the grand scheme of things, I'm going give you some background before diving into the praise. Pain of Salvation is a prog metal band from Sweden fronted by the immensely talented singer/guitarist/songwriter/composer/demigod Daniel Gildenlow. Every one of their six studio albums is either thematic or conceptual with topics ranging from the nature of existence (2005's "BE") to the devolution of culture due to consumerism (2007's "Scarsick") to a musical autobiography of Gildenlow's sex life (2002's "Remedy Lane"). With each thematic change, the band's sound rearranges itself to fit the new environment like a glove. A song about the banality of modern rap has Gildenlow spitting his own rhymes, a song dealing with the excessive spending of the upper class takes the form of a ultra gaudy R&B tune, and a song detailing Gildenlow's wife's miscarriage covers all of the emotions involved in such a complicated event.

Gildenlow's voice is another prime selling point. Imagine a less cynical Mike Patton as a theater major and you're getting close. What I'm trying to say is that the guy has range out the wazoo, in pitch, tone, and style. From glass shattering high notes to semi-growled low notes and everything in between. He even has a ballad voice that would bring tears to eyes of a fucking terminator. It helps of course that the guy is an incredible lyricist capable of bringing a human element to even the most abstract and overbearing of concepts.

Instrumentally, Pain Of Salvation represent the best of the world's of technicality and song writing. An average POS song will run through countless time signatures without ever collapsing into self indulgence or losing track of the melody. This is especially apparent on their 2000 album "The Perfect Element." Special props go to the bands rhythm section who constantly have to shift through warped odd time syncopations and completely wacked out note rates. Former bassist Kristopher Gildenlow was a master of the six string fretless, and current drummer Leo Margarit is one of the best young talents on the instrument.

Here's a video of the band playing Martius/Nauticus II from their "BE Live" dvd.

You couldn't throw a rock at Pain of Salvation's discography without finding a song that would prove that this band to be the best. Simply put, Pain of Salvation are the best band ever.

-[I]

Best Band Ever Week 1

2009-04-23T15:52:00.000-07:00

So a few days ago I was talking to my friend Preston (who was at one point the bass player in Random Child) and we both noticed that whenever I'm talking about a band that I really like, I will almost inevitably dub them the "best band ever" at least once. So I decided that I would use my elaborate explanations as to why certain bands rule as content on this blog (god knows it needs it.) Ever week I'll go down the list of my last.fm (a great resource for tracking your listening habits) and one by one explain that band is the best. ever.

Week One: Nine Inch Nails (573 plays)

Trent Reznor's the fucking man. 20 years running, the dude has bowed down to no one and has always done whatever the fuck he wants. At the same time, Reznor is one talented song writer and is able to bring out the hooks in even the noisiest of his tunes. The guy has also evolved with every album. "Pretty Hate Machine" was a pretty catchy electronic pseudo industrial dance record, and what does he follow it up with? Fucking "Broken", an EP filled with nothing but riffs, primal screams and loud distortion thrown on to just about every instrument. Two full lengths later, he releases "The Fragile", an overwhelming double disc release complete with repeating themes and densely layered compositions. Even "With Teeth" his weakest album by far pushed his sound into new terrain.

Not only are their records great, but the NIN live experience is truly unforgettable. The songs are reinterpreted by a strong and constantly changing backing band, the opening acts almost always kick ass (ex. Boris, Saul Williams, A Perfect Circle) and the light show is one of the most hi-tech and unique in the world. Projections, strobes, interactive LED sheets, more strobes, the list goes on.

And on top of all of that, NIN have always had amazing art direction, and Trent is always at the fore front of new ways of presenting music to the fans. Now every band and their mothers are allowing fans to download individual stems, but Trent was doing that shit way back in 2005.

Here's a clip of NIN doing 'Wish' live with The Dillinger Fucking Escape Plan.

And that's why Nine Inch Nails are the best band ever.

-[I]

Progress Report

2009-03-30T18:29:00.000-07:00

So spring break is done and all of us are back in school. Over the break Eli, Jack and I wrote a new tune. It's about five minutes long and a good deal heavier than most of the music on "Treatment". No sugary choruses or acoustic interludes in this beast. Think something a long the lines of Converge meets Mastodon, with some Pantera thrown in. Of course this is all filtered through the RC engine so take my descriptions with a grain of salt.

Besides that my break was spent relaxing, reading Stephen King (this book is SO GOD DAMN LONG), and playing video games with old friends. I know Jack and Jonathan were both at SXSW for part of their break, and Jack might tell you more about that later.

-RC [I]

Dusting off the cobwebs

2009-03-16T20:01:00.000-07:00

I don't update this blog nearly as much as I should. It's hard to keep people up to date on the happenings of a band that really doesn't do all that much most of the time. Of course it would be easier if I wasn't the only person doing the updates (yes I'm looking at you other members of RC!), but I'll make do with what I have. So here's a list of things that I have been up to:

-I've been sick for the past few days and have spent most of my time in bed reading Stephen King's "The Stand". Good read, although no where near as awesome as his work with "The Dark Tower".

-I've been playing drums in two bands here in Chicago. One of them is a Thrash Metal/Punk four piece called Aleister's. I don't really write any material for this group, although I do some editing here and there. It's simple, fast, and a whole lot of fun to play. The other band is an instrumental Prog Metal band called Eternity Engine. So far we only have one full song written, but we have two more in the works.

- My roommate and I have been playing Super Smash Brothers for the N64 nigh obsessively as of late. We will destroy anyone who dares challenge us.

-I've been working on new material for Random Child's next album. That's right, before we've even unleashed Treatment to the world! So far I have two full songs (one of which was actually going to be on Treatment but wasn't really ready and didn't fit anyway), one half finished song, and a bunch of fragmented ideas. The next album will be thematic in nature, although it won't follow any particular story line. Think "Dark Side of the Moon" rather than "The Wall".

That's all for now.

-RC [I]

Dream Music

2009-02-18T20:39:00.000-08:00

I wrote a melody in my sleep today. More accurately, a robotic Nobuo Uematsu (the composer for the majority of the Final Fantasy video game series) wrote a melody as he was dying from a gun wound. The strangest part of this was that the melody actually sounds like something Nobuo would compose. I was lucky enough to wake up in time to remember the piece and figure it out on keyboards.

This isn't the first time I've written music based on dreams. The ending section of "Angel of Dead New York" also came to me right as I woke up. Although I'm not completely sure, I think part of "Plague" had a similar inspiration. I've heard similar stories about other musicians. Brann Dailor from Mastodon said that many of the best riffs he's ever written came to him either right before he went to sleep or when he woke up. Apparently the riff from Satisfaction also came from dreamland. This makes sense when you think about it. When you are near sleep or dreaming you are at your most relaxed and prone to the most creative ideas. It's simply a matter of remembering what you hear.

There have been countless times that I've heard music in my dreams that I couldn't remember the next morning. One time Trent Reznor showed me an entire album he had finished (we were friends, which is something I day dream about all the time). I also witnessed an entire Tool concert in a sewer system that consisted of an hour long jam on Third Eye. Oddly neither of these things were anywhere near as good as listening to Year Zero or actually seeing Tool live.

-RC [I]

God damn it....

2009-02-12T15:10:00.000-08:00

I had a crippling existential crisis in the middle of one of my classes today. If you didn't know I go to Columbia College Chicago, an arts school with a strong music program. I was in the middle of a Music Theory class when I realized that I was in college and that I was doing music related work for college. I had understood that this was a fact before, but as of today I fully understand the implications of this fact. I now realize that I have wasted countless hours in classes that in no way shape or form will assist me in my current classes. From the purely pragmatic sense, the majority of my life has been a huge waste of time. Of course this isn't completely true because if it weren't for certain teachers and classes that I took in high school, I wouldn't have the work ethic to excel in this field. It makes me feel much better about not doing extremely well in certain classes, cause they no longer matter. At all.

Just thought I would share this with you.

-RC [I]

2009-01-30T23:05:00.000-08:00

A) What about Logan's Run?

IT'S LAST DAY FOR YOU IAN! THERE IS NO SANCTUARY!

B) I finally posted something. You did not discuss. I may have to give you a swift kick in the nuts.

C) <3

Winter Reading Continued

2009-01-30T22:24:00.000-08:00

I am now finished with the first four books in The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. The next three volumes all appeared almost at once in 2003/2004 after a six year break. It's now become very clear to me that I HAVE to do something in tribute of this monolithic series of books. As I mentioned before I have begun working on a piece loosely based on the first book of the series, but that will be just the beginning. Perhaps a song a book? Maybe more if I can't find a way to sum up each book in one song (this will almost definitely be needed for the monster that is book four). Don't expect a concept record. Instead I plan on breaking each song up, probably one an album. This pattern may not hold if the song just doesn't fit on the album for either quality, stylistic, or conceptual reasons, but it will be finished eventually.

-Random Child [I]

BEST SONG!

2009-01-27T19:10:00.001-08:00

I've come to the conclusion that at the moment, the best song ever is "Academy Fight Song" by Mission Of Burma... with "That's When I Reach For My Revolver" coming in at a close second.

Thoughts?

Discuss.

Random Child [E]

Beastin'!

2009-01-25T09:33:00.000-08:00

I just woke up from a nap after guesting on "Beastin' the airwaves" with Keili. It was a long night, but I had a good time and it was cool to see how some of all this radio stuff works. Back when I was younger I used to go to a camp called Buck's Rock. Me and my buddy Matt Weinberg (you may know him from the band Gilded Age) would play all sorts of loud and life ruining music on the camp radio station.

Anywho, here's the link if you want to listen to the show.

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/shows/30124

-Random Child [I]

Our Second interview?!?

2009-01-21T10:22:00.000-08:00

This weekend (sunday morning at 3 to be exact) Eli and I (Ian) and maybe Jon and Jack will be guests on "Beastin' the Airwaves" with Keili on WFMU. Our friends Banzai (www.myspace.com/banzainewyork) have been on the program before, and if their show was any indication, ours should be a ton of fun. Please dial in if you can stand being awake that late!

-Random Child [I]

Our first interview!

2009-01-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

So today Jack, Eli and I (Ian) sat down with none other than photographer extraordinaire and all around great guy Richard Gin (www.richardgin.org) and waxed philosophical on the local scene, Fiasco, and Battle Royal. The interview will probably be up on his blog sometime soon, but in the mean time I'd recommend giving his site a look through as he is incredibly good at what he does, and his blog is fun to read.

-Random Child [I]

Rant about blogging

2009-01-14T21:06:00.000-08:00

So I was roaming the vast wastelands of the internet when I came across of blog of a certain individual who shall not be named. This fellow, and several others across the web, was launching verbal rockets in all directions, each armed with both opinions accusations and a small dose of wit (in the case of this particular individual the dose of wit was particularly small). Now I hold nothing against those who use the internet as a place to store and project their opinions, hell if I did, I wouldn't have started this blog. What annoys me is the sense of importance that people believe their blog gives them. Posting your opinions on the internet does not make your opinions influential or give them any extra weight. Even more vexing is that this individual made it a point to say "if you don't like what I'm saying you can just ignore it" which is a silly argument because if you're so concerned about people making negative comments on your opinions than DON'T PUT THEM INTO PUBLIC SPACES.

So I just want to ask for a favor. If I ever start using this blog as a means to gratify my own ego, please stop me. Call me out on my bullshit. This goes for our music too. If things ever get too absurd and pretentious for words, please tell me so. Of course I can't promise that I'll take your opinion seriously, but hey it's worth a shot right?

Practice log

2009-01-03T16:44:00.000-08:00

This may be a recurring feature on this blog, but I can't say for sure.

Well today, we had practice for the first time in a while, and I'd say things went very well. Jonathan is picking up on the songs that he didn't play drums on for the record (there are a few) very quickly, Jack has some cool harmony parts worked out for a few of the tunes, and Joey was late.

We also started working on a new song (!) and have made some plans for future.

2008 in summary.

2008-12-31T08:45:00.000-08:00

As the year draws near to its final moments, I'd like to share some my reflections on this year in the world of Random Child.

2008 is the first year where we have kept the same line up from the beginning to the end. Without solidifying the line up, the rest of the advancements we made this year would have never happened.

We played two concerts this year, which sound like nothing to most people, but is pretty incredible to me. Of course neither performance was with a full line up, and we only played about 3 original songs total, but the fact that people have seen Random Child live amazes me.

But of course the highlight of the year was the recording of our debut album "Treatment". Not only did we have a super fun time in the studio, but we also made an album that we're all extremely proud of. It makes me giddy to know that the first thing people hear from Random Child will be a professional sounding record instead of some crappy basement demos (well, we did those too, but I don't think many people heard them).

Here's to even more exciting events in 2009!

-Random Child [I]

Winter Reading

2008-12-30T08:36:00.000-08:00

So lately I've been reading "The Dark Tower" series by Stephen King. I was introduced to the books by my roommate at college and I haven't been able to put them down since. I've only finished the first two books, but I can already tell that this series is going to be truly epic. The books occupy the space between Spaghetti Westerns, High Fantasy, and King brand horror served with a large cup of WTF.

I bring this up because I plan to write a song loosely based on some themes presented in the first book. It's going to be killer. It's also going to be nothing like the song Blind Guardian wrote about "The Dark Tower" which has a bagpipe solo in it for no reason (great song otherwise).

-Random Child [I]

About time...I guess

2008-12-27T19:44:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the official Random Child blog. I thought this would be a good way to allow people to keep up with the band's activities and keep us engaged with our listeners. Any and all members of the band will be posting things here, ranging from serious to utterly silly, and from smart to stupid.

Expect more soon....

-Ian.

Blogdom Child (the official Random Child Blog)

Year In Review: 2011

Crowd Participation

Voices

The problem with openess

Maxo takes it to the next level

Trials: Day #11

Trials Weekend!

Trials: Day #8

Trials: Day #5 (Slayer Day!)

Trials: Day #3

Trials: Day #1

Announcing: The Third Album

Let's Talk About Japan

Isolation is OUT

Life In A Bigger Prison

Year In Review 2010

Vidyah Games

Ian's Top Ten Lists for 2010

Screaming For Vengeance

Finals Week. Yay.

The Suburbs

Spooky Update

Treatment Remix Update

Tracking/Mixing/Mourning

I believe in Rock songs

Drums are done

*Whew*

Update/On Star Shock

Whatever happened to the band of tomorrow?

Recording Update (and some other things)

Mistakes/RIP DIO

Musing about Prog Rock and hero worship

Dead Again

Over thinking it.

Heavy Mithril

LYRICS. ARE. DONE.

On Fan Fiction and Kanye West

Interviews!

Source Material

A milestone reached

Defenders of the Faith

Excuses and other things

2009 in review

Top 30 albums of 2009

Bad gigs.

Announcing: Isolation Track List

Burnt out

General Update

Seasonal Affective Metal

Drug Free Psychedelics

Back to school

Announcing: Isolation

Treatment: available for free.

Hard at work

Stasis.

Good News Everyone!

Line up Change

Practice Log/Best Band Ever

Today's Practice.

Happy Slayer Day!

A Miracle!

General Update/Practice Log

On being sick.

Not Busy Not Busy Not Busy

Busy Busy Busy

Best Band Ever Week 3

Best Band Ever Week 2

Best Band Ever Week 1

Progress Report

Dusting off the cobwebs

Dream Music

God damn it....

Winter Reading Continued

BEST SONG!

Beastin'!

Our Second interview?!?

Our first interview!

Rant about blogging

Practice log

Whew